Macbeth
Opera
From 20 to 26 May 2022
From Friday 20 to Thursday 26 May 2022
Schedules of representation on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 8 pm. On Sunday at 3 pm.
Giuseppe Verdi
Opera in four acts
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Shakespeare
First performance at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence on 14 March 1847
Second version at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris on 19 April 1865
New production by the Opéra Nice Cote d'Azur in co-production with the Anthéa Theatre in Antibes and the Opéra de Saint-Etienne
Shakespeare was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Romantic artists. Verdi was not mistaken, and composed several masterpieces based on his plays, including the prodigious Otello and Falstaff.
In 1847, it was Macbeth that fascinated him: the young composer saw in the diabolical Scottish couple an opportunity to break the codes of belcanto. His music would be terrible, dramatic, alternately dazzling and dark - like a Caravaggio painting! The subject matter is incredibly rich: Macbeth, a Scottish general, is led by his ambitious wife into a series of murders that are supposed to secure him the throne. But the deaths and his guilt haunt him. Even his wife, the terrible Lady Macbeth, ends up going mad - one of the most beautiful bravura pieces in all of romantic opera! But here, Verdi invents a new style, daring to ask his performers to sing in a way that breaks with the customs inherited from Rossini, Bellini and other Donizetti. He wanted the rage to be heard, the darkness of the protagonists' souls to be embodied in their singing and in their voices. With Macbeth, Verdi was already inventing modernity.
