show category: Online performance

Premiere: 29.09.2020

Opera in  four acts, on a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, after the homonym tragedy by William Shakespeare

The first among Giuseppe Verdi’s three operas inspired by William Shakespeare’s theatrical works – preceding  Otello and Falstaff -, Macbeth represents a story about power, political intrigue and magic, centre staging the leading couple of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth. Throughout his life, G. Verdi has been passionate about politics, composing “Macbeth” at a tensed moment in the history of Italy, when most of the peninsula was under Austrian domination. Verdi had been sympathiser of the Italian Unification, or Risorgimento, as it was known in his native language (transl. movement for the unification, and independence of Italy), thus Macbeth clearly reflects these affinities. The opera’s premiere has been staged at Teatro della Pergola in Florence, in March, 14, 1847, a revised version of the work having been presented in April, 21, 1865, at Théâtre Lyrique in Paris.

Macbeth is primarily represented by the theme of tyranny, freedom, and magic, the action being placed in 11th century’s Scotland. The witches predictions sets the leading couple in a terrible venture that implies madness, crime, and self destruction. Under the vision of those prophecies, and their untamed ambition, Macbeth and his wife – an archetypal power couple, commit several crimes in order to obtain and keep the Scottish throne. The word “blood” is, thus, mentioned 24 times through the performance, while “bloody” in invoked 15 times. Each moment of the opera oscillates, on the knife blade, between reality and hallucination, earth and hell.  From the overture’s first luric notes, until the shattering protagonists’ arias, macabre choirs of the witches and Scottish criminals, manifesting their ordeals, Verdi’s music powerfully attracts at the chore of evil. Macbeth  is an opera of frightening beauty, that G. Verdi himself has extracted from Shakespeare’s magic, crime and madness moments, bestowing it with even more intensity, which translates into an exploration of tyranny, and a surprising journey of soul loss. The bluntness of the libretto, the transparency of its characters, ad the shades of thriller, brings to entire action to an even more enticing perception.

While the tyrannic highlighting in this verdian opera represents and innovative element, the connection between Macbeth and Shakespeare’s play shines through questions of fate and liberty: are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth pylons of evil spirits? Do they excuse their thirst for power through a supernatural belief? Just like Shakespeare, Verdi has also safely kept the mystery of these questions’ answers.

Join us as we discover this tale of power and malefic ambition, destiny and prophecy! All predictions shall come true in the first premiere of Season 100: MACBETH! Step into the legend!