Macbeth

by Giuseppe Verdi
Houston Grand Opera,
Houston Symphony;
Simone Young, conductor

Performers listed below.

Have you ever heard a wealthy and famous person tell an interviewer what a pain it is to be wealthy and famous? How everyone “wants a piece of you,” and you can’t go anywhere or do anything in peace? Well, for most of us, listening to some rich person complain about having more money and recognition than we could dream of is a little hard to take. It probably was for Giuseppe Verdi, too, when he was young and struggling. Later, things changed.

Verdi became so enormously famous so early in his career that before long, he was actually regretting his own good fortune. Verdi’s first opera, Oberto, was a hit in 1839. Within barely more than 6 years he’d written a whole string of box office smashes. Before long, so many theaters were demanding new Verdi operas that he just couldn’t keep up. The composer was suffering from a syndrome we now associate with teeny-bopper tennis stars: Giuseppe Verdi was “burnt out.” So in 1846, on his doctor’s advice, he abruptly decided to take a six-month break.

But fatigue wasn’t Verdi’s only problem. He may also have felt like he was working his tail off and not really getting anywhere. Until Verdi came along, the most famous opera composers in Europe had been Rossini and Donizetti. Make no mistake -- these men were creative geniuses. But part of that genius was in their ability to crank out hits almost incessantly, according to whatever operatic formula was in vogue - sort of like today’s Hollywood studios, which seem to latch on to a successful idea, and then jam it down our throats in film after film.

Now, Verdi had easily proven that he could compose according any “formula” his audiences wanted - in a sense, that’s what allowed him to write so many hit operas so quickly. But he wanted to do more - to expand on the conventions of the day, and even create new ones. So he did.

Almost immediately after his self-imposed exile from the opera house, Verdi decided to try something that almost no composer had ever done successfully. He would write an opera based on Shakespeare - and not just any Shakespeare. Verdi may have chosen the most daunting Shakespeare play of all: Macbeth. Yet, in taking on that monumental challenge, Verdi came up with an opera that truly began to break new ground. With it, he entered a period when he almost singlehandedly took Italian opera to new depths of musical artistry, theatrical expression, and emotional impact.

This week on NPR WORLD OF OPERA, with Steve Curwood, you can tune in a production of Verdi’s Macbeth featuring two truly stellar performers - Sergei Leiferkuss as Macbeth and Catherine Malfitano as Lady Macbeth - in a production from Houston Grand Opera.

As always, for more information on the opera, join Lou Santacroce for NPR’s AT THE OPERA, half-an-hour before curtain time.

Performers:
Sergei Leiferkus, Macbeth; Catherine Malfitano, Lady Macbeth; Daniel Sumegi, Banquo; Rafael Rojas, Macduff; Chad Shelton, Malcolm; Neal Gwartney, Duncan; Tommy Siciliano, Fleance; Joyce DiDonato, Lady-in-Waiting; Christopher Scott Feigum. Murderer; Eric Edlund, Apparition 1; Jennifer Aylmer, Apparition 2; Kathryn Hope Cavenaugh, Apparition 3; Christopher Scott Feigum, Doctor


Links: