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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Verdi’s admiration for Shakespeare led to such masterpieces as Othello and Falstaff, and if the earlier Macbeth isn’t on their exalted level it’s still a powerfully dramatic opera that hews closely to the original’s story line. The MET’s production retains the dark aura of the opera while updating it to a vaguely post-modern context. So the witches are bag ladies in various stages of decrepitude, with children in tow. The Banquet Scene features lowered chandeliers, a plethora of chairs, and a slew of extras dressed in tuxedos and party gowns. Macbeth sports a leather coat, the soldiers are in drab brown uniforms and seem to have fingers on their triggers even when they’re supposed to be in non-threatening situations. Director Adrian Noble also has Lady Macbeth do an inordinate amount of writhing around and singing from a lying-down position, adding to the feeling that a less interventionist directorial hand might have generated more impact. Mark Thompson designed the sets and costumes, making a leafless forest an integral background to both outdoor and indoor scenes. Movable pillars contract or expand the spaces in which the action takes place. Video director Gary Halvorson keeps his cameras moving with plenty of close-ups and odd angles, which accentuate the weirdness of the situations and the entrapment of the main characters in their greed and murderous ambition.
The Macbeth couple offer some of the juiciest leading roles in all of opera. Lady Macbeth is well done by Maria Guleghina, whose big voice and stage presence are pluses here. If her intonation is sometimes dubious and her high notes occasionally curdle she does project the role well, especially when cajoling her indecisive husband to murder. He’s sung by Zeljko Lucic, whose sturdy baritone is sufficient to inhabit an acting and singing performance of considerable power. Banquo is sung beautifully by bass John Relyea, and Macduff is well done by tenor Dimtri Pittas. But the MET chorus and orchestra, under the fiery baton of James Levine, are the real heroes of the performance, their contributions enhanced by lively sound. --Dan Davis
Macbeth is an all-regions disc in 16:9 ratio. Sound options include PCM Stereo and DTS 5.1 Surround. Extras include interview material with MET director Peter Gelb, conductor James Levine, and the principal singers and stage director Adrian Noble. Sung in Italian, subtitles include English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Product Description
The Metropolitan Opera's acclaimed Live in High-Definition series, which projects live performances into theaters across the globe, has met with unprecedented critical and commercial success and has made opera convenient and affordable to millions of viewers worldwide. Now, EMI Classics is proud to collaborate with The Met to release 6 new DVDs made from these broadcast performances.
A new production of Verdi's haunting opera by English director Adrian Noble, conducted by James Levine, and starring Andrea Gruber, Roberto Aronica, and Lado Ataneli. Hailed by the New York Times as "stylistically eclectic, grimly effective and, at times, intriguingly playful."
A new production of Verdi's haunting opera by English director Adrian Noble, conducted by James Levine, and starring Andrea Gruber, Roberto Aronica, and Lado Ataneli. Hailed by the New York Times as "stylistically eclectic, grimly effective and, at times, intriguingly playful."
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Powerful acting and superb orchestra work overcome the vocal inadequacies of this "Macbeth" from The Met
October 22, 2008
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In reviewing the Barcelona Opera DVD in which Maria Guleghina also appears as Lady Macbeth, I've already expressed my view (not shared by everyone here) that "Macbeth" is one of Verdi's underappreciated operas. Forgive me if I quote what I said there rather than rewrite it: "Verdi took great source material and used it to compose an opera with choruses that range from spooky (the witches) to weary and heartbreaking (the people of Scotland); arias for Lady Macbeth with vocal leaps and pyrotechnics that are Mozartian in difficulty; a great marital spat duet in which Lady M's diabolical hold over her husband is revealed; a final aria for the title character that garners sympathy for him, cold-blooded murderer though he is. The score is taut; not a wasted note."
As in her Barcelona Opera performance, Guleghina's intensity and utter commitment to the role go a long way to make up for her vocal difficulties. She struggles with the coloratura requirements of the role and is sometimes sloppy in her execution of the music, allowing her fiery acting to interfere with her singing. Verdi said he didn't want a Lady Macbeth with a beautiful voice, but that didn't mean he wanted one without discipline. (Listen to a Callas CD of Lady Macbeth's arias to hear that perfect combination of "ugliness" and discipline that Verdi was looking for in Lady M's voice.) But despite Guleghina's vocal shortcomings, hers is a Lady Macbeth that will be seared in your memory long after the opera is over; such is the power of her stage presence.
Zeljko Lucic does a fine job as Macbeth, although his performance is not as good as that of Carlos Alvarez in the Barcelona Opera production. Alvarez has a deeply mature, burnished baritone voice and creates a more nuanced Macbeth. Lucic's voice is rather generic and dry, although (as is the case with Guleghina) his vocal inadequacies are compensated for by strong acting. By the end of the opera, Lucic has turned Macbeth into a tragic figure.
John Relyea (who seems to be in almost every Met production these days) has a powerful deep bass-baritone voice. He excels in Banquo's aria. He may be kept from starring roles due to his stiff demeanor onstage and an irritating tendency to sing out of the side of his mouth.
It's a treat to see James Levine at the podium, conducting with great energy and precision right from the opening notes of the overture. The orchestra responds in kind, making Levine and his musicians one of the highlights of the production.
I liked the updated 20th Century setting, reflected in the sets and costumes. After all, Shakespeare's play is still one of the best political thrillers ever written. It's timeless: the masses suffer while the powerful plot and scheme.
If you love this early Verdi opera as I do, then I highly recommend this production despite its shortcomings.
As in her Barcelona Opera performance, Guleghina's intensity and utter commitment to the role go a long way to make up for her vocal difficulties. She struggles with the coloratura requirements of the role and is sometimes sloppy in her execution of the music, allowing her fiery acting to interfere with her singing. Verdi said he didn't want a Lady Macbeth with a beautiful voice, but that didn't mean he wanted one without discipline. (Listen to a Callas CD of Lady Macbeth's arias to hear that perfect combination of "ugliness" and discipline that Verdi was looking for in Lady M's voice.) But despite Guleghina's vocal shortcomings, hers is a Lady Macbeth that will be seared in your memory long after the opera is over; such is the power of her stage presence.
Zeljko Lucic does a fine job as Macbeth, although his performance is not as good as that of Carlos Alvarez in the Barcelona Opera production. Alvarez has a deeply mature, burnished baritone voice and creates a more nuanced Macbeth. Lucic's voice is rather generic and dry, although (as is the case with Guleghina) his vocal inadequacies are compensated for by strong acting. By the end of the opera, Lucic has turned Macbeth into a tragic figure.
John Relyea (who seems to be in almost every Met production these days) has a powerful deep bass-baritone voice. He excels in Banquo's aria. He may be kept from starring roles due to his stiff demeanor onstage and an irritating tendency to sing out of the side of his mouth.
It's a treat to see James Levine at the podium, conducting with great energy and precision right from the opening notes of the overture. The orchestra responds in kind, making Levine and his musicians one of the highlights of the production.
I liked the updated 20th Century setting, reflected in the sets and costumes. After all, Shakespeare's play is still one of the best political thrillers ever written. It's timeless: the masses suffer while the powerful plot and scheme.
If you love this early Verdi opera as I do, then I highly recommend this production despite its shortcomings.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
The main reason to acquire this DVD is for the superb orchestral conducting and the excellent singing. James Levine, one of the finest Verdi conductors active today, paces the performance perfectly and illustrates many of the felicities of the composer's scoring of this attractive earlyish work.
Maria Gughelina is in excellent voice as Lady Macbeth, though I sympathize with the fact that she has to sing some difficult passages lying down. She also is lumbered with some dreadful frocks. Macbeth is well sung although there is some strain in the high notes.
The updated production is eccentric and tends to loose focus in the later acts. It does not however detract too much and the viewer gets a good idea of what Verdi is aiming at.
The sound and picture quality are very good. Warmly recommended with minor reservations.
Maria Gughelina is in excellent voice as Lady Macbeth, though I sympathize with the fact that she has to sing some difficult passages lying down. She also is lumbered with some dreadful frocks. Macbeth is well sung although there is some strain in the high notes.
The updated production is eccentric and tends to loose focus in the later acts. It does not however detract too much and the viewer gets a good idea of what Verdi is aiming at.
The sound and picture quality are very good. Warmly recommended with minor reservations.
38 of 55 people found the following review helpful
For the record, I'm writing this review without having watched the actual DVD, which hasn't been released yet and which I don't plan to buy, I'm basing it solely on having seen the HDTV broadcast at a local cineplex several months ago. Under those circumstances, perhaps I have no right to write a review in the first place, and I'm sure some readers will write comments telling me this. So be it. I'm not reviewing the DVD, I'm reviewing the production and the opera, which are the same as what I saw in the theater. Even though I am a huge fan of Verdi, and the Met, and James Levine, I found this performance to be nonessential viewing.
I admit, Macbeth is far from being my favorite Verdi opera. The main reason, Verdi wrote this during his early period, while he was still adhering to many of the elements of bel canto style(at the same time reshaping them into his own unique sound, sure, but at this point he hadn't quite achieved a total transition). Well, bel canto, a rigidly structured, florid, and, let's face it, occasionally shallow style of music is a poor match for vintage Bard, particularly his darkest play. I'm convinced that if Verdi had waited a few more years and written an opera of Macbeth around the time of Luisa Miller, Stiffelio and Rigoletto, he would have given us a great opera. If he'd waited even longer and done it near the end of his middle period, or even in his late period, he might have produced his greatest masterpiece. There is evidence to support this. He actually did revive the opera around the time of La Forza del Destino, and it is the revised version that is generally performed nowadays. The new music(the battle scene, the ballet, Lady Macbeth's act two aria) is probably the strongest music in the piece, it is certainly more mature than the rest of the opera, more suited to the menacing mood of the play. It's a shame Verdi didn't compose a completely new Macbeth during this time, a loss, in my opinion, as great as his failure to produce a King Lear, but that's how it goes. What we're left with is more a curiosity than a great opera, a weird, unsettled attempt to challenge the conventions of the time, adapt them to heady and brooding material that demands a more sophisticated brand of music. The attempt is largely unsuccessful, but still quite entertaining when taken in context, and in the right mood.
Given that this is a rather eccentric opera, something of a misfit in the Verdi canon, a transition between his boisterous, unapologetic bel canto hoe-downs(Nabucco, Ernani) and his more thoughtful and mature work, then a camp approach might be just the right way to present the material, and if so I should really like this production. But for some reason I don't. If you like the idea of the witches stomping their feet while dressed as bag ladies, if you like the idea of Banquo strutting around with a machine gun, wearing an artillery belt, if you like the idea of Lady Macbeth's boobs practically hanging out of her sagging wardrobe(well, okay, I'll give you that one), then this Macbeth is for you. Personally, the whole thing struck me as silly, even more silly than Lady Macbeth shrieking about summoning demons from hell in a shrill, manic cabaletta, or she and her husband plotting a murder in perfect bel canto harmony. Maybe that's the problem. The opera is over the top and unwieldy enough on its own, it doesn't need the embellishments of a stage director and set designer and wardrobe head trying to prove how clever they are. This is dumbed down Verdi, not to mention Shakespeare, and I'll politely take a pass.
Musically, this is a good performance, though not legendary. Maria Guleghina's performance as Lady Macbeth(without even taking into consideration her lack of underwear) will do nothing to dispel the controversy that surrounds this tempestuous singer. Either you love her wild abandon, her primitive shrieks, the feisty way she attacks a role with spirit and venom, or you don't. I enjoyed her as Abigaille in the Met's DVD of Nabucco, and I enjoyed her here. The other standout performance comes courtesy of John Relyea as Banquo, who sadly bites the dust midway through the second act and only reappears as a non-singing spectre. Relyea is one of those Met stalwarts, reveling in the smaller, non-glamorous roles and making them his own(even his Nightwatchman in Meistersinger is distinctive). Maybe someday he'll snag some of the meatier bass-baritone roles, but if not he'll still have a stellar career to look back on. The whole cast is good. And Levine seems to be having fun with the score - even if it isn't among Verdi's more substantial, Macbeth still offers a certain freshness, a diversity of musical ideas in which to luxuriate and indulge. I was disappointed, however, that the usually cut-resistant maestro chose to do without the ballet, which was part of the revised version and ranks among my favorite musical moments in the whole opera.
This production is worth seeing, once, but, for me at least, it isn't worth spending the money, especially with far superior Met productions from this past season being released simultaneously(Manon Lescaut, Peter Grimes, La Boheme). It's good to have the Met back on track in terms of regular broadcasts, and more plentiful DVD releases. It's also good to have another Macbeth on DVD option. I really wanted to love this: Verdi, the Met, Macbeth, Levine. Sorry, but it doesn't quite make the cut.
I admit, Macbeth is far from being my favorite Verdi opera. The main reason, Verdi wrote this during his early period, while he was still adhering to many of the elements of bel canto style(at the same time reshaping them into his own unique sound, sure, but at this point he hadn't quite achieved a total transition). Well, bel canto, a rigidly structured, florid, and, let's face it, occasionally shallow style of music is a poor match for vintage Bard, particularly his darkest play. I'm convinced that if Verdi had waited a few more years and written an opera of Macbeth around the time of Luisa Miller, Stiffelio and Rigoletto, he would have given us a great opera. If he'd waited even longer and done it near the end of his middle period, or even in his late period, he might have produced his greatest masterpiece. There is evidence to support this. He actually did revive the opera around the time of La Forza del Destino, and it is the revised version that is generally performed nowadays. The new music(the battle scene, the ballet, Lady Macbeth's act two aria) is probably the strongest music in the piece, it is certainly more mature than the rest of the opera, more suited to the menacing mood of the play. It's a shame Verdi didn't compose a completely new Macbeth during this time, a loss, in my opinion, as great as his failure to produce a King Lear, but that's how it goes. What we're left with is more a curiosity than a great opera, a weird, unsettled attempt to challenge the conventions of the time, adapt them to heady and brooding material that demands a more sophisticated brand of music. The attempt is largely unsuccessful, but still quite entertaining when taken in context, and in the right mood.
Given that this is a rather eccentric opera, something of a misfit in the Verdi canon, a transition between his boisterous, unapologetic bel canto hoe-downs(Nabucco, Ernani) and his more thoughtful and mature work, then a camp approach might be just the right way to present the material, and if so I should really like this production. But for some reason I don't. If you like the idea of the witches stomping their feet while dressed as bag ladies, if you like the idea of Banquo strutting around with a machine gun, wearing an artillery belt, if you like the idea of Lady Macbeth's boobs practically hanging out of her sagging wardrobe(well, okay, I'll give you that one), then this Macbeth is for you. Personally, the whole thing struck me as silly, even more silly than Lady Macbeth shrieking about summoning demons from hell in a shrill, manic cabaletta, or she and her husband plotting a murder in perfect bel canto harmony. Maybe that's the problem. The opera is over the top and unwieldy enough on its own, it doesn't need the embellishments of a stage director and set designer and wardrobe head trying to prove how clever they are. This is dumbed down Verdi, not to mention Shakespeare, and I'll politely take a pass.
Musically, this is a good performance, though not legendary. Maria Guleghina's performance as Lady Macbeth(without even taking into consideration her lack of underwear) will do nothing to dispel the controversy that surrounds this tempestuous singer. Either you love her wild abandon, her primitive shrieks, the feisty way she attacks a role with spirit and venom, or you don't. I enjoyed her as Abigaille in the Met's DVD of Nabucco, and I enjoyed her here. The other standout performance comes courtesy of John Relyea as Banquo, who sadly bites the dust midway through the second act and only reappears as a non-singing spectre. Relyea is one of those Met stalwarts, reveling in the smaller, non-glamorous roles and making them his own(even his Nightwatchman in Meistersinger is distinctive). Maybe someday he'll snag some of the meatier bass-baritone roles, but if not he'll still have a stellar career to look back on. The whole cast is good. And Levine seems to be having fun with the score - even if it isn't among Verdi's more substantial, Macbeth still offers a certain freshness, a diversity of musical ideas in which to luxuriate and indulge. I was disappointed, however, that the usually cut-resistant maestro chose to do without the ballet, which was part of the revised version and ranks among my favorite musical moments in the whole opera.
This production is worth seeing, once, but, for me at least, it isn't worth spending the money, especially with far superior Met productions from this past season being released simultaneously(Manon Lescaut, Peter Grimes, La Boheme). It's good to have the Met back on track in terms of regular broadcasts, and more plentiful DVD releases. It's also good to have another Macbeth on DVD option. I really wanted to love this: Verdi, the Met, Macbeth, Levine. Sorry, but it doesn't quite make the cut.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Outstanding performances
This was one of the best performances/productions that I have seen of this great opera, which I saw as recently as last year in Strasbourg. I would highly recommend it. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Colin Nicholson
James Levine,the Met chorus and orchestra are the stars!
Dmitri Pittas gives a heartrending account in his lead tenor role. Mr. Lucic is a promising Verdi baritone. Ms. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Douglasmagee
Lensopinion
I found this DVD of Verdi's Macbeth entertaining and look forward to replaying and enjoying this version of Macbeth many timws !
Published on December 3, 2008 by L. A. Jackson
A Surprise Production
I must admit at the onset that I had no intention of seeing, let alone buying this set, but the local PBS station KCET broadcast it and since I was not planning an outing I stayed... Read more
Published on September 18, 2008 by DDD
Save your money!
This was one of the most disappointing of all the Met broadcasts. I love this opera, but this performance was extremely disappointing with lackluster singing and unimaginative... Read more
Published on September 6, 2008 by David
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