Macbeth (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Macbeth Thomas Price Campbell Macbeth Presented by Arizona Opera in co-production with Seattle Opera at Phoenix Symphony Hall, Phoenix, Arizona. October12-14, 2006. Directed by Bernard Uzan. Set and costume design by Robert Israel. Conducted by Joel Revzen. Lighting design by Christopher Akerlind. Lighting recreated by Connie Yun. Flight direction by Brent Gibbs. With Lori Phillips (Lady Macbeth), Louis Otey (Macbeth), Peter Volpe (Banquo), Jianyi Zhang (Macduff ), Jamie Flora (Malcolm), Randy Fenton (Duncan), Anthony Constantino (Fleance), Kara Harris (Lady-in-waiting), Andrew Gray (Doctor), Juan Aguirre (Servant and Murderer), Christopher Herrera (Apparition 1), Will Smith (Apparition 2), James Mendola (Apparition 3), and others (Chorus). As Ayanna Thompson's "Program Notes" explain, "Macbeth is uniquely suited to adaptation because it investigates the very line between the timely and the timeless." Thus the combination of ultra-slick, modern staging and nineteenth-century military costuming felt eerily appropriate as Arizona Opera's production of Verdi's Macbeth asked the audience to process a modern adaptation of a nineteenth-century, Italian, operatic adaptation of an early-seventeenth-century English play. The adaptation into opera of Shakespeare's dark Scottish tragedy provided Verdi a [End Page 81] mechanism to work out a number of interpretive issues for his audience. In turn, Arizona Opera's altered version of Verdi's libretto pointed up Professor Thompson's claim that Macbeth remains capable of speaking across time and in the immediate present. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Macbeth, presented by Arizona Opera in co-production with Seattle Opera. Photograph courtesy of Arizona Opera. At numerous moments when the audience might have imagined a plot strand bound to its historical context, the opera also offered a more contemporary issue for consideration. Timeless in the Macbeth legend is the examination of the politics of ambition. Arizona Opera cut whole lines and entire characters from the libretto.. The effect was to force the audience's attention on the dilemma facing Macbeth by the end of the first act. Common to most adaptations of Macbeth, the company pitted Macbeth's urge to climb socially without the accordant mens rea against Lady Macbeth's almost insatiable urge to climb at any cost. Not tied to eleventh-century Scotland, seventeenth-century England, or nineteenth-century Italy, the transhistorically human misgivings about vaulting ambition became even more intense when rendered in operatic performance. Minus characters like Shakespeare's equivocating Porter [End Page 82] or his memory-keeping Ross and Old Man, the stripped-down cast of characters in the opera was left to lay out the critical conflict, and it was only through the operatic adaptation that they were able to do so. The medium itself became a kind of bodiless character. Without the extensive psychological exposition to which audiences are typically privy in theatrical performance, characters were still able to convey the emotional intensity connected to the proposed murder of the king by way of musical repetition. Foreshortening both Shakespeare's play and Verdi's libretto, much of the story's argumentative dialogue that paints the inversion of Macbeth's "manly readiness" and Lady Macbeth's "womanly defense" was condensed into the repeated lines sung "ensemble" that occupied a huge portion of the recitative in the first act: Macbeth I shall hear Duncan's holy virtues Thunder vengeance at me like angels of wrath. Lady Macbeth You are bold, Macbeth, but have no daring. Binding this central exchange, Lady Macbeth's short, leading questions and Macbeth's almost forced answers, bore striking resemblance to the Greek dramatic deployment of stichomythia. Shakespeare is famous for having put this poetic technique to use in moments of violent dispute, but the operatic adaptation intensified the gravity of the conflict when sung loudly and at incredible pace. This particular exchange (similar to most between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) occurred center stage as Macbeth slowly sunk into a chair, cowering from his wife, while Lady Macbeth stood tall, and moved literally in front of Macbeth, blocking him entirely from the spotlight that illuminated her figure, making her quite literally the central actor of the scene. As both the heavily edited libretto and the stage positioning forced Lady Macbeth to the center of...