Verdi – Macbeth: Giuseppe Altomare/Oltha Zhravel/Orchestra Filharmonica Marchigiana/Daniele Callegari
Naxos
This fast-moving performance of Macbeth was recorded live at the Sferisterio Festival, Marata 2007. The sense of occasion is enjoyable and the sound, unlike studio opera recordings, is not in your face. Verdi’s early masterpiece was first performed at Florence in 1847. The composer was 32 and had written 10 operas in eight years. It’s one of Verdi’s finest early operas, preceding the early masterpieces Trovatore, Rigoletto and Traviata.
Macbeth is an Italian musical version of Shakespeare’s poetic drama. No one should look for the play’s subtleties, richness and complexities. Verdi told his librettist to cut the words of the drama: “Use few words –but significant”. The opera was subsequently revised for productions in St Petersburg and Paris. This performance uses the 1865 Paris version. A French critic at the time complained that Verdi did not know his Shakespeare. The composer commented: “Oh, they are terribly wrong. Perhaps I did not realise Macbeth fully enough, but that I do not know it, that I do not understand it. And I don’t have a feeling for Shakespeare? No, by God, no. He is a favourite poet of mine, whose works I had in my hand from my youth and read and reread all the time”.
Still, the plot is cut to the bone and the melodrama is played for all it is worth as the plot unfolds in an arc. We move rapidly from the witches scene into Macbeth’s temptation, then Lady Macbeth reads the letter, Duncan arrives, the plot is hatched and the tensions mounts with a superb Macbeth and Lady Macbeth duet performed by Giuseppe Altomare and Oltha Zhravel).
The murder and its discovery – a wonderful rolling chorus to end the first act. The murder of Banquo is made memorable by the beautiful scene beloved of hopeful baritones in the Cardiff Singer of the World is here well turned out by Pavel Kudinov. Things are swiftly pulled together with the return of Malcolm (Marco Voleri) and Macduff (Rubens Pelizzari).
Accept everything on offer on its own terms and you’ll find it packed with good things. Above all, Verdi’s use of the orchestra shows great strides. The band no longer just accompanies the singers. It has a huge role in the richness and atmospherics of the piece and foreshadows later masterpieces such as the Force of Destiny and Don Carlos. The chorus of Scottish refugees in the last act equals in pathos the more famous Va Penserio.
The cast may not be quite in the top flight we have come to expect from being spoiled by prestige commercial studio recordings, but all the performers are thoroughly committed and vital. In this music, that means a very great deal.
Robert Giddings
