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In an introduction to Verdi's Macbeth at the Vienna State Opera, Barrie Kosky—the renowned Australian director based at the Komische Oper Berlin—called the work a three-person-story. Given the large set of characters in Shakespeare's play and the still ample cast of Verdi's opera, this sounded intriguing. It turned out that Kosky simply followed Verdi's own instructions: ".. there are three roles in this opera," Verdi wrote, "and three is all there can be: Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, and the chorus of witches. The witches dominate the drama; everything derives from them. "*
I don't know
that anybody has
ever taken this as
far as Kosky did
with his shockingly
radical stage
reduction to the
three-person drama.
Productions of Macbeth usually
struggle with the
representation of
the large chorus of
the Witches and the
ghostly apparitions
they conjure to tell
Macbeth his destiny.
Swept off the stage
are all the
apparitions,
courtiers and
extras. Only the
brief appearances of
the warriors Banco,
Macduff and Malcolm
are left. Side
characters like the
doctor, the lady in
waiting or the
servant are placed
on the fringe or
barely visible. The
stage is a deep,
dark space traversed
by four diagonal
lines of dim lights
running like
parallels into
infinity. The entire
opera takes place in
concentrated
darkness, and the
longer one
contemplates this
uncertain space the
more it comes to
represent the
unknowable past and
future.
Upfront under a vague light from above lies a man like a corpse,
covered with dead crows: Macbeth, the man obsessed with his
future, doomed from the start. A silent mass of bodies moves up
on him out of the darkness—shadowy but recognizable as naked
women, men and hermaphrodites—the Witches. The mass moves
like a single body, slowly, sneakily, almost lovingly like vultures
sensing a carcass.
In this atmosphere the rather jolly chorus of the Witches takes on
an eerie tone of cynicism as they foretell the future to Macbeth
and his rival Banco: Macbeth will be king but Banco's sons will
wear the crown. Macbeth is visibly unsettled (as is the audience)
while the naked bodies cling and writhe at his heels.
Kosky profits from a great singer/actor in the lead
role—acclaimed baritone Gerald Finley. The Canadian singer has
an uncanny capacity to show physically the split psyche of
Macbeth: the shudder that accompanies his violent hunger for
power and the doubt that gnaws at him. His mellifluous voice
easily reaches from childlike, whispered longings to rage, from
vengeful fury to dark forebodings and terror.
Next to his mesmerizing portrayal, the Lady Macbeth of
Ukrainian mezzo Liudmyla Monastyrska seems secondary. She
remains immobile on her chair (two chairs upfront are the only
set props), massive, with a few stock gestures of a conjurer. Her
voice is strong but shrill in the high notes and evocative mainly in
the low-key insinuations that are her power. Verdi wanted an
"ugly" Lady Macbeth with an ugly voice projecting evil. But
Monastyrska lacked the fascination of evil and the charisma to
match Finley.
This imbalance suits Kosky's concept: Macbeth's primary relation
is with his own demons, i.e. the Witches who embody his naked
greed, the seductive lust for power. Nothing is real, everything the
Witches say and do comes across as a manifestation of his
unconscious, independent of the malice of his Lady. This focus on
the unconscious gives Kosky's production a very modern appeal
without the need to "modernize" Verdi. The costumes, barely
visible, are simple, dark coats in a late-medieval style. Kosky's
stage with its sinister lighting (designed by Klaus Grünberg)
places the whole drama in the dark of the soul.
Particularly striking is the banquet scene (after the murders of the
king and Banco). There is no banquet, there is nothing but the
black space around the royal couple, but now the Witches stand
guard along the diagonal lines of light like naked stone statues in
the hallways or alleys of a castle. The image is loaded with
allusions to other works of art—especially Cocteau's castle in La
Belle et la Bête, where the statues follow you with their eyes and
human arms hold the candelabras. The couple sits on their chairs
trying to celebrate their bloody success when paper streamers
suddenly fly at them, apparently shot by the immobile statues
standing guard. No movement is detectable. The colored arcs of
the streamer come out of nowhere, and little by little the couple is
ensnared in the tangles of fake mirth.
Another sinister scene has the young son of Banco toss a ball in
the air in the rhythm of his father's aria of foreboding, warning his
son to escape, when the murderer appears. As Banco collapses,
the dropped ball rolls forward across the stage.
At the end, Lady Macbeth has gone insane on her chair, trying to
wipe the blood from her hands while a single crow is watching.
The Witches reappear like a brooding thought. Their raised
fingers tremble to indicate that the "Birnam Wood is moving" and
Macbeth's defeat is near. Macduff finally murders Macbeth in the
same way Macbeth murdered his victims: a vague figure
approaches from the shadows and stabs him in the back—there
one second and gone the next. A black curtain comes down and
Macbeth is left alone upfront.
With this ending, the production follows Verdi's original version
from 1847 (he was thirty-four years old), whereas the revision
from 1865 ends with a victory chorus saluting Malcolm, the next
king). During preparations for the premiere, Verdi explained to
the first interpreter of his Macbeth:
In this final scene there's an adagio in D-flat, every detail of
which needs coloring, cantabile and passionate. [...] You'll be
able to make much of the death scene if, together with your
singing, your acting is well thought out. Macbeth mustn't die
like Edgardo [in Lucia di Lammermoor], therefore it has to be
treated in a new way. It should be affecting, yes; but more
than affecting, it should be terrible. All of it sotto voce, except
for the last two lines, which, in fact, you'll also accompany
with acting, bursting out with full force on the words "Vile...
crown... and only for you!..."
As if Verdi had had Gerard Finley in mind, the singer powerfully
conveys Mabeth's awareness of the futility, the terror of the
useless bloodshed he caused. He sits on his chair, tattered like a
homeless man. In the chair next to him sit the crows—all alive
now, flapping their wings and eagerly listening to the last
mumblings of a man who is already a ghost.
This staging of Verdi's first "music-drama" was a revival of
Kosky's Zurich Opera production, where it premiered in 2016 and
was reprised in 2023. The Vienna State Opera orchestra under
Axel Kober was exquisitely fine-tuned to the singers. The intensity
of Verdi's score was considerably heightened by the lack of visual
distractions in Kosky's concentrated scenic space. In the smaller
roles, Roberto Tagliavini as Banco, Saimir Pirgu as Macduff, and
Carlos Osuna as Malcolm were impeccable.
Kosky's stark, existential vision of Macbeth was naturally
controversial and much debated in Europe. For me it was what
one is always hoping for: the "ideal" interpretation, the brilliant
concept that won't easily be matched by another.
* From Verdi's correspondence, ed. Philip Gosset, general editor
of Verdi's works.
Photos:
Wiener Staatsoper/Michael Pöhn
Wiener Staatsoper / Sofia Varågalová
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