Verdi: Macbeth
by Claude d'Anna
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Actor: Johan Leysen, Leo Nucci, Samuel Ramey, Shirley Verrett, Veriano LuchettiDirector: Claude d'Anna
Brand: Universal Studios
Producer: Henry Lange
Writer: Giuseppe Verdi
Writer: Francesco Maria Piave
Writer: William Shakespeare
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); Italian (Subtitled); German (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Italian (Original Language)
Format: DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-01-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Deutsche Grammophon
DVD Reviews of Verdi: Macbeth
DVD Review: Verdi's youthful, bloody Shakespeare
Summary: 5 Stars
Verdi's love for Shakespeare is well known. He kept a copy of his complete works, translated into Italian, at his bedside, reading them ... studying them throughout his long life. I suspect that Verdi learned what constituted a great stage production by absorbing those pages over many years. But it was only in his later years, with his final two operas, that Verdi managed to somehow 'channel' Shakespeare, and the composer's art and the playwright's art were finally united into two works of towering perfection, illuminating the dramatic antipodes of tragedy and comedy by producing Otello and Falstaff, paradigms of each respective genre. These last two works are Verdi's finest operas, and it is no accident that their librettos are based on several Shakespearean plays. Arrigo Boito was Verdi's brilliant librettist who took what was best in Shakespeare and who also helped Verdi to discard some of his earlier, grimly melodramatic impulses. Unfortunately, Verdi had no Boito when he composed the relatively early Macbeth in 1847. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave. Macbeth is an example of Verdi's 'galley days', when the young composer was learning his craft, chained to the oars of Italy's professional opera circuit, slogging his way through the composition of at least 15 operas in his first 10 years. It is also an example of the melodramatic buckets of blood school, much in demand during those years of political and cultural upheaval, and Macbeth may be considered the beginning of the end for Bel Canto opera.
Macbeth is not my favorite opera: it takes a strong performance to overcome my aversion to it. Here we have such a strong performance! This is a 1987 film of the opera, directed by Claude D'Anna, and featuring lip synched singing and atmospheric set design. Shirley Verret makes for a strong, bloodthirsty Lady Macbeth. Leo Nucci is her willing accomplice of a husband. Banco is sung by Samuel Ramey but acted by Johan Leysen. The cast is a good one, with fine singing coupled with surprisingly strong acting. Riccardo Chailly does a nice job of conducting the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Comunale Bologna in a soundtrack recorded for Decca Records. Filmed in the bleak 10th century fortified castle of Godefroy de Bouillon in the Belgian Ardennes, a remarkably convincing stand-in for medieval Scotland, the fog enshrouded locale is an apt filmic representation of the supernatural events to come, with witches and ghosts and a fierce, palpable evil hovering over everything. This is best considered a film of the story of Macbeth with Verdi's music as a fortuitous soundtrack. If you're an opera purist, you probably won't go for it. If you're like me, however, a fan of movies who has never really warmed to this early Verdi opera, you might just enjoy this lovingly produced film.
The opera on two discs runs for 132 minutes and includes a bonus 45 minute Making of documentary. It is a widescreen film, apparently digitally remastered with some striking visual images that help to illuminate the conflicts on screen. Sound in PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 is exemplary. The usual DGG menus and subtitles are here.
If you don't mind opera films that take some liberties, including lip synched singing, and enjoy well made movies that tell a story with skill, you should enjoy this filmed version of Verdi's Macbeth. If you're a purist, avoid it and stick to stage versions. Recommended with that caveat.
Mike Birman
Description of Verdi: Macbeth
VERDI:MACBETH - DVD MovieClaude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting. Samuel Ramey's sonorous bass is the soundtrack Banquo, who's acted by Johan Leysen. Philip Volter is the actor playing Macduff to the brilliant tenor of Veriano Luchetti. So there's little to fault in this performance of a middle-period Verdi opera that's all too rarely done these days despite its Shakespearean pedigree and tuneful but dramatic score.
This film version was hailed in Europe when it was released, but some viewers may find it excessively gloomy while others will feel it suits the dark tale of ambition, crime, and madness. D'Anna's witches are primordial creatures first seen crawling out of the slime of a corpse-filled battlefield. Most of the film takes place in Macbeth's castle, shot in an actual 10th-century Belgian castle's subterranean series of rooms, armories, dungeons, and tunnels. Lady Macbeth's Letter Scene is filmed with Verrett wandering down staircases and through tunnels, all in long shots. Duncan's arrival is like a traveling circus troupe, preceded by a fire eater and a juggler, the king carried in a covered litter, only his hand emerging to be kissed by Macbeth and to stroke the head of the man about to murder him. Banquo's ghost is made visible, seated on Macbeth's throne during the debaucheries of the Banquet Scene.
These and other directorial choices are driven by D'Anna's personal vision of the play and the music, often taking his cue from the latter, as in Duncan's arrival which Verdi set to jaunty orchestral music. Others reflect his linkage of crime with the Macbeth couple's sexual dependence. But his vision of the narrative and of specific scenes doesn't violate Shakespeare's story or Verdi's opera, though there will be moments when sensitive viewers may prefer to glance away from the sheer ugliness of the witches or wonder why the singers occasionally turn their backs to the cameras in mid-aria. Much is explained though, in the 45-minute film on the second DVD on the making of the film in which the sheer physical obstacles of the project are explicated and the director's choices clarified. --Dan Davis
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