The warrior Macbeth fights on the side of the King of Scotland – but when a coven of witches prophesy that he shall become king himself, a ruthless ambition drives Macbeth and his wife to horrific acts. Murder makes Macbeth king, and intrigue and butchery are the hallmarks of his brief, doomed reign. The witches make…
Come along to the Fisher Theatre bar before their screening of the Royal Opera House’s production of Macbeth, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, and you will find me talking about Verdi and his Macbeths – yes, there were two – and why this dark, Shakespearian tale of Scottish murder so utterly captivated the Italian composer for much…
Buxton International Festival are currently staging Verdi’s first, 1847 Macbeth, written for the Teatro della Pergola, Florence, a theatre similar in size to the Edwardian jewel-box of Buxton’s own Opera House (just look how beautiful it is). This earlier version is a shorter, sharper work, which sees Macbeth dying on stage with one final aria to…
Macbeth’s turbulent emotions and fierce storms make it ironically ideally suited to an English summer evening, as the clouds gather menacingly overhead (although I managed to stay dry at Iford). Director Bruno Ravella presides over a sophisticated traditional reading which proves faithful to both Shakespeare’s eerie original, and also to Verdi’s passionate protests for Italian…
Glyndebourne’s short opera from Luke Styles sets Macbeth in a modern British army unit deployed, judging by their desert fatigues, somewhere in the Middle East East (so, feel free to pick a conflict from the ever-mounting list of today’s tragedies). The libretto is carved straight from Shakespeare’s original by Ted Huffman, who also directs this…