Synopsis
No literary figure inspired composers more than Shakespeare, and Verdi was hardly tone-deaf to the musical possibilities of the famed English bard. In Macbeth, Verdi achieves a tragic grandeur that has seldom been equaled in music. He was so hell-bent on making his tenth opera a smash that he told his librettist, Francesco Piave, to write something bubbling with “extravagance and originality, brevity and sublimity.’’
Set in a gloomy Scottish castle and its moors, the opera gets us in the mood from the onset, and bathes us in Verdi’s lush, often cryptic score − a highlight being the "Witches’ Chorus". Verdi had a lot to work with: the tale of a military commander whose wife fuels his ambition to be the king of Scotland after murdering the sitting ruler; a spiral of ensuing violence; all-consuming guilt; a descent into madness; civil war; and for good measure, another murder.
Verdi’s musical vision of a Shakespeare classic is a timeless jaunt suitable for any age − the music intensely vocal, rich in choral drama, and the plot as compelling as it gets.
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