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Chorus do
Verdi's Macbeth proud
SATURDAY’S revival at the Royal Opera House of Phyllida
Lloyd’s staging of Verdi’s Macbeth was first seen
in Paris in 1998 and at Covent Garden in 2002.
Written in 1846, it is a fascinating score combining the raw
vitality of Verdi’s early period with the revisions he
made in 1866, when at the height of his mature fame.
It is one of the most difficult operas to produce, with its
mixture of murder, ghosts and visions and Lloyd could have used
lighting (by Paule Constable) to better effect, in depicting
these.
The production, on a set resembling walls of massive blocks
of stone, designed by Anthony Ward, is especially strong in
representing the big ideas with superb stage pictures.
The play’s key elements of blood, fear and gloom are well
contrasted visually with the glittering prize of kingship, paraded
in gold robes, and, in the act-three apparition of gold-armoured
horses.
The Royal Opera Chorus do it proud. As the witches, in flowing
black robes, with red turbans, they are an omnipresent controlling
force, intervening to ensure that their predictions come true;
then as courtiers, and as the ordinary people lamenting at Macbeth’s
destruction of the country – a Verdian interpolation.
Thomas Hampson’s performance in the title role was strangely
diffident, his fine voice occasionally rising to the challenge.
But more often a tendency to croon weakend his portrayal and
robbed it of virility.
It is rare to hear a vocal performance as accomplished as that
of Violetta Urmana in the cruelly demanding role of Lady Macbeth.
But ideally it needs an actress with a more steely temperament
than she offered to make it a truly outstanding performance.
John Relyea’s rich, sonorous bass as Banquo gave much pleasure.
The tenor Joseph Calleja sang Macduff’s aria well.
Conductor Yakov Kreizberg makes an auspicious Covent Garden
debut, keenly aware of the rhythmic impulse so vital in early
Verdi, sympathetic to the needs of the singers, and bringing
out the many atmospheric instrumental shadings and colourings.
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