downwriteficition reviews Verdi’s Macbeth
at the State Opera & Ballet Company
Sofia, Bulgaria
Lady Macbeth near death
In that opera was much more popular and
political then, Verdi could be seen as the Stephen King of the nineteenth
century. His Macbeth was a runaway success across Italy in 1847. Not only a
crowd puller, his tenth opera was also potentous. First staged just before The
Year of Revolutions - when Cavour and Garibldi began the country’s twenty-three
year struggle for unification. Though it’s obviously not the composer’s
original idea, Verdi breathes life and relevance into the story (just as Mozart
would do when he staged Don Giovani, two years before The French Revolution). Verdi’s
rendition is steeped in Gothic, it glories in Melodrama, and the plot substitutes
Shakespeare’s Three Witches for a ballet of witches’ dances on the scale of an Epic.
This sumptuous production by the Bulgarian
State Opera company, with a full orchestra (including four double basses) and a
cast of about fifty singers, dancers and principals is a little under three
hours of gorgeous Italian classical music, choral singing, solos, movement and balletic
dance. Apart from that, since the plot follows Shakespeare’s shortest play
quite faithfully, the production hardly ever seems to lose its way.
Wheras Macbeth is a portrayal of the
reluctant – the equivocating – tyrant, Lady Macbeth is often seen as the
archetypal femme fatal – she who eggs on her husband to commit foul deeds and
therefore share equally in his guilt; often she is seen as even more evil. But
that would be to make Eva Braun as complicitly Third Reichian as Hitler himself.
Here, the approach has been to see the whole Macbeth family as more of a projection
of the villain’s psyche. In a scene, surreal for its juxtaposition, the couple’s
daughter frolics near a fountain – this, while her mother and father look dotingly
on. The positioning of this idyllic interlude comes after the murders have
begun, and while others are are still being plotted. Which critic was it who
asked, “How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?” Well, here the answer is one. Here
are shades of “The Zone of Interest”.
The production emphasises the fantastical
nature of Macbeth’s engagement of witchcraft, which is shown as no real
accident. If there is an external spark to his own evil, it is manifested by a
male dancer - a Mephisto-like creature - who is forever wheedling his way into
the scenes. Macbeth ineracts with him by peering through what looks like a
small magnifying glass – which he often holds up rather like Van Helsing with
his wooden cross; though in the tyrant’s case, conjuring rather than countering
evil.
I most enjoyed the second half (acts three
and four), for their balletic as much as musical quality. Perhaps it was the
generous glass of red wine (bought for only four euros!) I had in the foyer
during the interval? But, the first half seemed to be about ideas, the
performance slightly wooden. What happened during the witches’ dance at the
start of Act Three was a great fusion of music, dance and words with a
pulsating drive to it. The refugee scene saw a return to Ideas, but it was
handled so sculpturally, it worked. The only thing that didn’t work was the
swordplay, which was far too stylised and without the least dynamism. It don’t
think it’s right to glorify fighting, as many portrayals do; however, what’s
the point of bringing realistic swords on stage and then waving them about as if
they were harmless selfie-sticks?
I haven’t said much about the music. It
was superb, they had a large, really tight orchestra, playing – yes – a lot of
tra-la-la lala as you get in all real Italian opera; sometimes it’s incongruous
because it, for example, seems too jolly, like country dance music to accompany
some infernal rite. The soloists used too much vibrato, which you just can’t
get away from. I know it’s said to have originated in Italty some time in the
middle of the nineteenth century, but I don’t believe the originators used it from
bar to bar across the whole score. (See the downwriteficiton article ‘Against
Vibrato’).
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| The Murder of Banquo |
I don’t know if this production remains in
the company’s repertoire. I would gladly go again. Of note was the nightly changes
in cast, Lady Macbeth was sung by three different singers in each of the Friday,
Saturday and Sunday evening performances. I was at last Sunday’s show, when it
was Radostina Nikolaeva. Long live state opera and ballet companies!
Just out in paperback and ebook:
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| Yes No Ma'am! |
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