[Corrections made 13/10/10]  
Like superb singing? Go see Macbeth. Enjoy intelligent directing? Go see Macbeth. Love dramatic music? Go see Macbeth. Appreciate atmospheric theatre design? Go… you’ve got the idea.

Yes, NBR NZ Opera has done it again! Ideal casting, a superb conductor, wonderful directing and an apt production design (all on loan from UK’s Opera North) make this rare season of Verdi’s Macbeth a treat for lovers of both opera and general theatre.  

But don’t go if you like lavish costumes, pretty sets or charming music – Macbeth is not for the faint hearted. The music is dark, the set and costumes stark and the lighting harsh, as befits a story of ambition gone mad and bad.

None of this can be a surprise to anyone who knows Shakespeare’s play, which Verdi so lovingly adapted. The bloody rise to power of Macbeth and his wife has historically been seen as a cautionary tale against the dangers of “vaulting ambition” and the ambiguous price of dealing with supernatural powers. As the witches intone in the opening scene, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

In eleventh century Scotland, Macbeth is a nobleman whose successful generalship of an army for the current King Duncan against the traitor Thane of Cawdor earns him that title in the opening scenes. Famously, Macbeth hears of his promotion first from bearded witches on the ‘blasted heath’, receiving confirmation immediately afterwards from the royal messenger. The “Weird Sisters” have further hailed him as “king hereafter”, while foretelling that his companion nobleman Banquo will sire a line of kings, though become not a king himself.

Inspired by his prophecy, Macbeth writes to inform his “dearest partner in greatness”, Lady Macbeth, thus ushering in Shakespeare’s most infamous female character. Reading his letter spurs Lady Macbeth to decide to “chastise with the valour of my tongue all that impedes” her husband from attaining the crown, which obstacle she identifies as his being “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness”. She seizes on the news that King Duncan is coming to visit as a supernatural sign that the time of the prophecy has come. Invoking murderous spirits to “unsex” her, she orders them to take her “milk for gall” and to fill her “top-full of direst cruelty” (surely an irresistible invitation to a dramatic composer!).

Challenged by his wife to “screw your courage to the sticking place”, Macbeth stabs Duncan in his sleep. But, unnerved by all the blood and his inability to pray, he forgets to plant the incriminating dagger on the king’s pre-drugged servants, as they had planned. Exasperated, Lady Macbeth goes herself, promising to “smear the sleepy grooms with blood”, thus literally and figuratively bloodying her own hands.

And so the tragic spiral begins. Though crowned, Macbeth envies Banquo his prophesied royal descendants who will inherit Macbeth’s crown. To prevent this, he arranges the assassination of Banquo during a ride with his young son, Fleance — who significantly escapes. But when Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost at a court banquet, the king is so unnerved that his queen has to send everyone home, pleading Macbeth’s illness in public and berating him in private. When another nobleman, Macduff, flees Macbeth’s subsequent reign of terror to join Duncan’s exiled son Malcolm in England, Macbeth orders the deaths of his wife and young children.

Vowing vengence and justice, Macduff and Malcolm negotiate with the English army to depose Macbeth. In Dunsinane Castle, Lady Macbeth has become so disturbed by the trail of blood she has unleashed that she is sleepwalking (another gift to an operatic composer). “Out, out damned spot,” she cries, obsessively dry-washing her hands. “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” Recorded by the watching doctor and lady in waiting, her incriminating words seal her fate.

The embattled Macbeth seeks out the witches to ask if he should send assassins after the exiles. The witches warn him against Macduff, but assure him that “no man born of a woman shall harm Macbeth” and that he will “never be vanquished” until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane. When he asks if Banquo’s descendants will indeed reign, they show him a vision of Banquo preceded by eight kings, the last carrying a mirror in which are reflected many more. (The mirror may be Shakespeare’s tribute to his new monarch, James I, who claimed descent from Banquo’s line.) 

Emboldened by the witches’ new prophecies, Macbeth prepares for battle, only to hear that the enemy soldiers have camoflaged their advance on Dunsinane by carrying branches from Birnam Wood. Confronting Macduff, he despairs when hearing that Macduff was not born of a woman naturally but instead was “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped” (aka a caesarian). Realising his fate is sealed, Macbeth vows to die in battle. He is killed by Macduff, and Malcolm is acclaimed king. 

Macbeth is a role that has made the reputations of centuries of famous actors, from Garrick (who first revived the play in 1744) through Kean and Irving to Gielgud, Olivier and Orson Welles. Verdi’s Macbeth has attracted opera stars of equally high calibre, like Gobbi, Nucci and Hampson, of whom the Georgian baritone Michele Kalmandi proves a worthy colleague.   Dramatically he triumphs, his low-key naturalistic acting style highlighting the character’s tortured extremes and agonised contradictions more effectively than histrionic acting would. While the sottovoce (half voice) tone required by Verdi in the murder duet can be a little unstable, Kalmandi’s dramatic ability more than compensates. And when singing full voice in, for example, his fearful reaction to Banquo’s ghost and his last warlike aria, “Pieta, rispetto, amore” (‘Pity, honour, love’), his rich, dark voice produces lovely legato and expressive phrasing.

However, Shakespeare’s most reviled female character is arguably the star of both the play and the opera. Lady Macbeth’s ambitions and fate have historically been seen as a warning to women not to step outside their traditional nurturing role, but the power, passion and ultimate vulnerability of her character make her more compelling as the centuries pass. Her greatest eighteenth century exponent, Mrs Siddons, became so terrified on first reading the play that she ran to hide in her bed! Yet her interpretation of the role reigned supreme for 20 years and inspired the famous portrait by Reynolds of Mrs Siddons as the tragic muse. Great sopranos who have triumphed as Verdi’s Lady Macbeth include Callas, Nilsson, Grandi and Verrett.

Lady Macbeth is a tremendously demanding role, both vocally and dramatically, and Italian Antonia Cifrone sings it magnificently. She starts with accomplished coluratura in the first aria “Vieni! t’affretta! … Or tutti sorgete minstri infernali” (‘Come! Hear me!… All you infernal ministers’), which is a setting of Shakespeare’s tongue-lashing and “unsex me” soliloquies described above. Then Cifrone gets better as the score gets tougher! She delivers fierce power and beautiful legato in the Act II aria, “La luce langue” (Oh tender light), in which Lady Macbeth envisages the death of Banquo and her crowning.

While Cifrone’s acting is sometimes rather melodramatic and suffers a little from what John Copley calls ‘furniture acting’ (e.g. clutching the bed), this is a minor quibble. When she performs with Kalmandi, they create a chemistry that makes the Macbeths’ passionately shared commitment to power totally convincing – she urges what he both fears and desires.

But Cifrone’s triumph is her performance of the famous sleepwalking scene, “Una macchia” (the blood spot soliloquy). Verdi’s demands are enormous – a two octave range, every gradient of dynamic, and shades of expression from fury and terror to childlike puzzlement, along with fiendish technical requirements that culminate with a pianissimo top D flat – and Cifrone accomplishes all with thrilling tone and grace.

In the witches, this opera has possibly the most proactive women’s chorus of the repertoire, which is beautifully sung by the women of Wellington’s Chapman Tripp chorus. Verdi reportedly saw the witches as the third main character of his opera, and this is clearly the opinion of Opera North’s directorial team, Tim Albery and Maxine Braham (intelligently realised for Wellington by Steven Anthony Whiting).. As an almost constant, haunting presence on stage, the women act as a Greek chorus, silently reacting to the action even when not ‘seen’ and involved.

As envisaged by the original production designer Johan Engels, the opera is set in a vaguely 1940s wartime where the soldiers wear Russian-inspired uniforms and the witches are dressed as cleaning ladies and midwives – a more historically appropriate realisation than Harry Potter-style, pointy-hatted hags. The opera begins with the three lead witches (Glenn Meade, Emma Sloman and Alexandra Ioan) perched on the raked backdrop, not exactly flying but certainly hovering. During the musical prelude, they deliver Lady Macbeth of a stillborn baby, which is fitting as the music prefigures her sleep-walking scene.

The blood on the bereft mother’s nightgown is the first of several recurring visual themes that unify this intelligent and subtly witty production. Blood, flame, trees, beards, knitting and daggers are the most obvious, but there are others, including babies who reappear (sextuplets, no less!) during the ballet music beginning Act II to add a touch of black humour. The women first bring out their knitting at the moment Macbeth first proposes murdering his king – shades of Madame Lafarge.

To meet Shakespeare’s description, the three lead witches stick on goatee beards to make their first predictions to Macbeth and Banquo, and it turns out to be no coincidence that Banquo also sports a goatee – later in the witches’ vision for Macbeth, all Banquo’s descendants are similarly adorned. My favourite is the moment when a tree is carried (unusually) branch first behind the scheming witches – almost a broomstick… but no, that would be too obvious.

New Zealand’s own Jud Arthur as Banquo is distinguished by more than his beard. His singing is ideal – endless legato, warm tone and effortless low notes. His acting has always been a strength, shown here in his tenderness to Banquo’s son and haunting quality of his aria “Oh qual orrenda notte” (‘Oh fearful night’) that hints at a premonition of his coming fate.

Oddly enough, it is his silent appearances as the ghost that stick most in my mind. Arthur always has a powerful physical presence, and the clever direction increases his impact as the ghost, by keeping him mostly up-stage and gently lit during his ‘live’ scenes. When he appeares down-stage and brightly lit as the ghost, his menacingly slow movements are all the more chilling.