FULL MACBETH Barcelona 2023 Luca Salsi, Erwin Schrott, Sondra Radvanovsky

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Macbeth   
• Composer: Verdi Giuseppe  
• Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave, Andrea Maffei    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Spain  
• Recorded: February 25, 2023
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Luca Salsi, Erwin Schrott, Sondra Radvanovsky, Francesco Pio Galasso, Gemma Coma-Alabert, Fabian Lara, David Lagares
• Conductor: Josep Pons  
• Orchestra: Orquesta del Gran Teatre del Liceu  
• Chorus: Coro del Gran Teatre del Liceu  
• Choreographer: Antonio Ruz  
• Stage Director: Jaume Plensa  
• Stage Designer: Jaume Plensa  
• Costume Designer: Jaume Plensa  
• Lighting Designer: Urs Schönebaum  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Liceu+  
• Date Published: 2023  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, essubs  
• Video Recording from: Liceu+     FULL VIDEO
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Quote from Liceu:

“The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures. ‘Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil!”
William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Act II, Scene II)

Verdi’s love affair with Shakespeare began with Macbeth, which he considered “one of the greatest human creations”. He revered the Bard’s works and this was the first opera he based on them. His aim was to turn his tragedy into “something out of the ordinary”. For Jaume Plensa, capturing Verdi and Shakespeare’s Macbeth was a youthful dream so when Gerard Mortier asked him at Salzburg what opera he would like to direct, he did not hesitate. He has had to wait 25 years for the dream to come true.

When the witches foretell that Macbeth will be the next king of Scotland, Lady Macbeth gives destiny a hand by murdering the present King. But the witches’ prophecies turn Macbeth into the bloody assassin of friends and rivals until, alone and furious, he faces his last battle and dies. A team of singers who combine dramatic intensity with vocal authority take on the roles of the honest general driven to murder and deceit and his boundlessly ambitious wife.

One of the most fascinating sentences in the entire work — “Sleep no more” — shows us that Macbeth, besides becoming a killer, deprives himself of the possibility of sleeping peacefully for the rest of his life. Jaume Plensa, who has been haunted by these words since childhood, will set his entire iconographic universe in movement, creating a powerful aesthetic and ritual presence that makes the ideal setting for this sombre, theatrical tragedy, full of diabolical energy, performed to music masterfully conducted by Maestro Josep Pons.