Before La Scala 2021, Verdi’s Macbeth is staged. Plot, singers and how to see it: that’s all you need to know

Only after the ensemble rehearsals did the artists remove the masks. But keeping the distance. Glances, movements, surprise effects: what tricks in the direction of Davide Livermore make it so that in Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth, the inaugural title of the La Scala season, all this is not seen? “Theater is made up of tricks, it is a continuous overcoming of obstacles and a search for solutions”.

Livermore, at its fourth inauguration in the temple of Milanese opera, already knows that the public will not notice. Distances, masks, disinfectants, it doesn’t change a comma. December 7th at 6 pm at La Scala in Milan there will be the real theater. Not only the one in which from the stalls, from the boxes and from the galleries will come vibrations straight to the heart of Macbeth and the Lady, shared with orchestra, choir and with the whole cast. But also the one in which the energy of the artists will reach the audience from the stage. Because dealing with rules and difficulties is theater. His Macbeth, directed by Riccardo Chailly, is contemporary, cinematic, dreamlike. But above all, after the 2020 edition without spectators, it is live.

The four aces of opera in the main roles – The adults perform on the stage of the Piermarini opera stars, requested by all the opera houses in the world. The protagonist, Luca Salsi, is a champion of the Verdi repertoire. He has already conquered the Scaligero audience in Ernani and will return to La Scala in the season as Renato in A Masquerade Ball. From Parma, born in 1975, he has been nicknamed “super baritone” since he replaced Placido Domingo in an afternoon performance of Ernani at the Metropolitan in New York a quarter of an hour from the start. The same evening he acted, as scheduled, in Lucia di Lammermoor. Anna Netrebko, Russian, is the most famous soprano of our time. For her, this Macbeth is “very special: visual effects, scene changes and even dancing”. It will be a disturbing Lady Macbeth. “We have worked on the continuous timbre research also to bend her vocal beauty to the even unpleasant and murderous aspects of the Lady”, explains Riccardo Chailly. The tenor Francesco Meli, Genoese, is Macduff. At the eighth Verdi character at La Scala, in 2005 he opened the theater season at the age of just 25
Carlo Felice of Genoa in Don Giovanni di Livermore. In the end Ildar Abdrazakov, in the role of Banco, gifted with a vocal technique and great scenic qualities.

The show: cinematic, contemporary, dreamlike – Power, its birth and its decline. Its strength and fragility. At the center of the direction of Davide Livermore, helped by his artistic team, Giò Forma for the sets, Gianluca Falaschi for the costumes, D-Wok for the video part, Antonio Castro for the lights, are the human ambitions. That never change. Shrines of the wealth and domination of large metropolises parade. City whose perspectives multiply and are reflected as in the film Inception by Christopher Nolan. They are images of a lost self between
skyscrapers skyline. There is the idea of ​​the labyrinth. There are many references to the classics of twentieth-century architecture and a tribute to the Milanese architect Piero Portaluppi. Even the costumes are contemporary, retracing the trends of Milanese creativity of the last decades to dress luxury, they are monochromatic for the crowd.

Daniel Ezralow: from rock to opera, dance spans multiple worlds – The choreography is by the eclectic Daniel Ezralow, historical dancer of Momix and then founder of Iso. Lead actor in films directed by Wertmuller and Bellocchio, top name of the Sanremo Festival and Amici, but also of pop and rock greats such as David Bowie, Sting, U2.

Riccardo Chailly’s direction: Macbeth dies on stage – David Lawton’s 1865 edition, chosen by Riccardo Chailly, recovers the death of Macbeth (“Mal per me che m’affidai”) of the first version at the Pergola in Florence in 1847. and stage by Luca Salsi “. Who jokes, and thanks him for making him die on stage. The performance of Macbeth concludes the path desired by Chailly: from the years of Verdi’s youth to the composer’s first meeting with Shakespeare, the inspiration for the latest libretto works by Boito, Otello and Falstaff. A youth trilogy that began in 2015 with Joan of Arc, continued in 2018 with Attila and now with Macbeth, on a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Andrea Maffei from Shakespeare.

Lady Macbeth: the dark lady of the English Bard – The manipulator as told by Shakespeare is theheroin in the negative. Cruel but also a victim of herself. Macbeth from a brave warrior turns into an assassin. He acts, she leads the atrocities. But its story is dramatic. Having now become queen, she cannot achieve the hoped-for peace. As a sleepwalker she lets all the evil that lurks in her soul gush out. He rubs his hand trying to erase the stain of the crime for which he feels responsible. His awareness emerges in the nocturnal delirium with absurd clarity and crudeness (“Who could have thought that the old man had so much blood in his body?”).

Verdi: “I would like a harsh, muffled, dark voice in Lady” – In a famous letter of 1848 to the librettist Salvatore Cammarano Verdi wrote about Eugenia Tadolini, who would sing Lady in Naples: “Tadolini sings perfectly and I wish Lady didn’t sing. Tadolini has a wonderful voice, clear, limpid, powerful: and I would like a harsh, muffled, dark voice in Lady “. On the eve of the premiere of the Parisian version of 1865 Verdi again refers to prose describing the recitation of the sleepwalking of one of the greatest actresses of the nineteenth century, Adelaide Ristori: “Anyone who has seen Ristori knows that only very few gestures have to be made, indeed one only, that is, to erase a bloodstain … “. And here we go back to Chailly’s work with soprano Anna Netrebko. To the dramatic nuances of the voice. Sinister, distressed. Noir.

The Premiere on Rai – Macbeth is proposed by Rai Cultura live exclusively on Rai1 starting from 17.45. The television direction is by Arnalda Canali, the conductors are Milly Carlucci and Bruno Vespa. Also broadcast live on Radio3, on Rai1 HD channel 501 and on RaiPlay, it has a staff of 50 people including cameramen, microphone players, audio and video technicians. In the field 13 high-definition cameras, 45 microphones in the orchestra pit and on stage, 11 radio microphones dedicated to soloists that will be used for stereo broadcasting and for live commentary broadcast on Radio3, with surround sound for cinemas and for TV.

First broadcast and under 30 preview – The First widespread, a real festival with which the Municipality of Milan accompanies the city in the previous week with performances, readings, meetings and exhibitions dedicated to the work, involving places and spaces in the city. On December 7, Macbeth is broadcast live in many spaces of the nine municipalities of Milan and also in the metropolitan area. (Here all the information). Also this year the Premiere was preceded on December 4th at 6pm by the preview for the under 30 public. The initiative, inaugurated in 2008, allows all young people under the age of thirty to purchase a ticket for the opening show of the season at the price of 24 euros.

First on social media – La Prima is also on every year social media, with the hashtag #primascala. La Scala theater, with its 420,513 followers on Facebook, 293,876 on Instagram
and 308,402 on Twitter, ranks among the most followed Italian cultural institutions on social media. On the occasion of Macbeth’s premiere, the theater also debuts on Tik Tok, which has just launched the hashtag #classicalmusic and launches the new #dietrolequinte starting from December 4th.

The plot – Act I – Macbeth and Banco, generals of the army of the king of Scotland, Duncan, on their return from a brave battle, meet the witches in a wood, who prophesy their future. Macbeth will be lord of Cawdor and later king of Scotland. While Banco’s progeny will reign. The king’s messengers arrive and announce to Macbeth that he has been made lord of Cawdor. One of the prophecies therefore came true. Lady Macbeth, when she learns of it, then incites him to kill the king. In the night the murder takes place.

Act II – Duncano’s son Malcolm is blamed for the crime, forced to flee to England. Macbeth has meanwhile become king. But he will also have to kill Banco and his son Fleanzio, pushed by his wife, to prevent the second part of the witches’ prophecy from coming true. Fleanzio will manage to escape while Banco will die. Except then appearing to him as a ghost during a banquet.

Act III – Macbeth returns to question the witches but the response is obscure. He will remain king of Scotland until the forest of Birman moves against him and no one born of a woman can harm him. Lady Macbeth convinces him to also get rid of Macduff, who together with Malcolm is gathering an army against his kingdom.

Act IV – The enemy army comes secretly and advances disguised behind branches gathered in the Birman forest. Lady Macbeth is delirious. At night she wanders sleepwalking trying to wipe the blood of the crime from her hand. The awareness of the murder she was the mastermind does not abandon her. Macbeth will die killed by Macduff, who came into the world with an unnatural birth. And here comes this prophecy too.

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