Verdi’s Macbeth masterfully compresses Shakespeare’s play into a compelling four Act opera that fulfils all the expectations of a mid-19th century musical melodrama while also adding the theme of a people liberated from oppression, addressing the Italian nation’s own struggle for freedom and unification. Insofar as we can take the drama’s sequence of events and scene changes as corresponding to historical reality – and therefore to a sprawling period of at least 17 years from before Macbeth rises to the throne to his death – Karolina Sofulak’s new production for Longborough impressively focuses its action and draws the threads more tightly by setting it entirely in one suggestively gloomy but non-specific place. (Tartan is dispensed with, though bagpipes call the audience’s attention at the long interval’s end.)
It’s a vaguely industrial dystopia with a twisted rusty frame which suggests, in a simple abstract form, both a wizened tree (for the witches’ heath and Birnam Wood subsequently) and a watch tower. That is balanced by an equally corroded grave so that the deathly and sepulchral are tellingly ever-present and intertwined with the action – it doubles up as the bed on which Duncan is murdered, and into which Macbeth is finally subdued and killed by Macduff, as well as the banqueting table at the centre of the feast in Act Two during which Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost. Furthermore, in a striking coup de théâtre, it enables the realisation of Verdi’s original vision for that latter scene whereby Banquo can rise up from underground like a gored zombie rather than a mere otherworldly spectre. As also when he emerges again for the apparitions of Act Three, the murdered Banquo remains more horrifically embodied than usual, creating an especially eerie, haunting atmosphere, especially with John Molloy’s emphatic, penetrating singing.
Costumes are in a modified mediaeval style, retaining a sense of timelessness and the legendary, with Macbeth and the Lady in sinister black leather gowns like bottle back tarantulas or some other fearsome creatures. The witches are not cast as such but as ordinary people in simple rough cowls, and remain the same throughout, perhaps drawing a connection between the group who prophesy to Macbeth and the oppressed populace who lament their situation in the famous chorus opening Act Four before regaining their freedom – as though there is a native wit and intuition on the part of the people in determining their own future without recourse to those strange supernatural beings who exist on the fringes of society. Dramatically and visually such a connection aids the cause, at any rate, of Sofulak’s superbly and efficiently structured production. Reminding us of the opera’s literary origins in one of the most famous of the Bard’s plays, a puppet theatre is deployed at the beginning and end, as well as the opening of Act Three, in which the principal protagonists play out the drama’s main points, with Molloy (as Banquo) among the puppeteers in the first sequence, seeming to imply that the characters are the playthings of others, or of fate.
The musical performance is as memorably searing as the production is hauntingly bleak. Nil Venditti leads a highly energised account of the score which grips from beginning to end with its brisk, purposeful drama, powered especially by the brass section of the Longborough Festival Orchestra. The pounding witches’ chorus opening Act One sets the musical mood and pace for the rest of the opera, which could occasionally relax, for instance in the weird woodwind arpeggios which accompany the apparitions of Act Three. If it is unremitting, that does chart the production’s harrowing nature, and nuance and contrast in the play of instrumental sonorities – often with Wagnerian gravitas – maintain thrilling interest and tension.
Mark Stone gives a solid interpretation of the title role with a slight airiness in tone that lends some humanity and sense of doubt or trepidation, while Viktoriia Balan makes a stirring impression as a forceful Lady Macbeth with an iron will, though also able to modify her temperament convincingly to coax or goad as needs be, demonstrating firmly that she wears the trousers. They come up against Jung Soo Yun’s lustrous, fervent Macduff, to all intents and purposes sounding like a young Pavarotti; in duet with Rhydian Jenkins as the rightful king Malcom, the two tenors soar to ecstatic heights, leaving no doubt that even they can overcome Lady Macbeth’s resolve. Connor Baiano makes a quieter, but no less creditable appearance as the Doctor.
If the familiarity of Shakespeare’s play makes it easy to become inured to its dark drama, this riveting, chilling account of the opera makes one sit up to appreciate it once more.
Further performances to 16 July
,%20Hilary%20Cronin%20(Melissa)%20and%20Rowan%20Pierce%20(Oriana)%20Credit_%20Genevieve%20Girling%20(1).jpg?w=160&resize=160,160&ssl=1 "Musically, an evening of complete enjoyment: Olivia Fuchs's playful 'Love Island' setting for Handel's Amadigi in Buxton")
