Macbeth opens October 22!

Adrian Noble is a man who knows his Shakespeare. Having served as Artistic Director of London’s Royal Shakespeare Company from 1990 through 2003, he is currently working on the Met’s new production of Verdi’s Macbeth that opens on October 22.

The director likes to draw parallels between the play and the opera: “I’ve always been very interested in the Shakespeare operas of Verdi, and fascinated by the way Verdi took on and took forward the work of Shakespeare,” Noble says. “I find that artistically very exciting.” Having directed the original Macbeth three times—with such distinguished actors as Derek Jacobi and Jonathan Pryce in the title role—he brings a different perspective to the opera. “What Verdi did is very interesting. What he carried forward from the play, in my view, is that there’s a deep erotic bond between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, which relates to their sexuality and to their childlessness. Verdi has used that in a fascinating way. What he’s also done is making the chorus the third protagonist in this piece. It’s the most extraordinary use of the chorus in any opera I know. The impact of that is a tide of evil that sweeps through the play with a very profound undertow. At first I thought, how on earth do you do it with 50 witches? Because Shakespeare only had three! That’s not going to work. But when you realize what [Verdi has] done, it’s a brilliant, brilliant notion. And the other thing that he takes forward from Shakespeare is the ability for the internal landscape and the external landscape to interact: there is a realistic setting, Scotland or whatever it is, but that’s almost of no importance at all. The really interesting landscape is inside the mind of the Macbeths—and in a way [it’s] the cosmology that the witches create. These are internal landscapes as much as external landscapes. And the two things clash on the political level.”

Learn more about Noble’s ideas and the different aspects of the new production, and hear the singers talk about their roles. Check back daily for new blog entries.

This entry was posted by Philipp Brieler on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 4:02 am and is filed under New Production Countdown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.