Short Summary
Macbeth, army commander in the service of King Duncan, is prophesied by three witches that he himself will become king. But the price is high,
and his bloody path of self-destruction soon begins. Urged on by the ambitious Lady Macbeth, he commits murder and treason to secure his power. But his actions catch up with him when he is forced to face off against his adversary Macduff and an insurgent army. The tragedy reaches its climax in a devastating battle that seals Macbeth's downfall and makes Malcolm, the murdered king's son, the new king of Scotland.
Storyline
Macbeth and Banco, the king's generals, return from the war.
Witches prophetically greet Macbeth, Lord of Glamis, as Lord of Cawdor and King of Scotland. Banco also wants to know his future. He is to become the father of kings. Soldiers announce Macbeth's appointment as Lord of Cawdor.
Macbeth shudders at the violence with which he could make the second prophecy come true. Banco sees through his temptation.
The witches expect Macbeth to visit them again soon. A letter from her husband tells Lady Macbeth about the encounter with the witches. She knows his ambition, but doubts his willingness to use violence. She is determined to remove his inhibitions.
A servant announces the imminent arrival of King Duncan. Lady Macbeth pins all her hopes on the night that the king will spend under her roof. Before the king and his entourage arrive, Macbeth and the lady find time to communicate.
Macbeth sees a bloody dagger leading him to the king's bedroom. At the agreed signal, he enters.
After the murder, the completely distraught Macbeth refuses to enter the room again in order to slip the murder weapon to the sleeping guards. Lady Macbeth does so. There is a knock at the door. Lady Macbeth drags her husband away with her.
Macduff and Banco discover the dead man and raise the alarm. Those who have rushed to the scene curse the murderer and call for God's judgment.
Duncan's son Malcolm has fled to England. He is believed to be his father's murderer. Macbeth is king.
To prevent the prophecy that Banco will be the father of kings from coming true, he decides to kill Banco and his son Fleance.
Lady Macbeth becomes intoxicated with the power of life and death. Assassins hired by Macbeth lure Banco and his son into an ambush. Banco, who has accepted Macbeth's invitation despite his suspicions, is murdered. Fleance manages to escape.
The new king and queen give a party. Lady Macbeth sings a drinking song. One of the murderers informs Macbeth of Banco's death and Fleance's escape. As Macbeth sits down on the vacant armchair, Banco's ghost sits on it. Lady Macbeth and the guests do not see him. The ghost disappears. Macbeth has the drinking song repeated. Banco's ghost appears once more. Macbeth decides to go to the witches. The Lady reviles his fear of ghosts. The party observes the ruler's disintegration. Macduff, a Scottish nobleman, will leave the country.
The witches conjure up spirits. They prophesy: Macbeth should beware of Macduff; no one born of a woman can wound him; until the forest of Birnam comes against him, he is invincible. Macbeth wants to know whether Banco's family will reign. Eight kings appear, the last carrying a mirror: Banco. Laughing, he shows the long line of his crowned descendants. Macbeth faints.
Lady Macbeth is told about the apparitions. Macbeth and his wife will destroy Macduff's and Banco's families.
A refugee camp on the border between Scotland and England. Large sections of the Scottish population flee their country to escape Macbeth's tyranny.
Macduff thinks of his wife and children. He has left them behind in Scotland. Macbeth has murdered them. Macduff wants to carry out God's revenge.
Malcolm is on his way to Scotland with an English army. In the forest of Birnam, he orders the soldiers to disguise themselves with branches. Fugitives join the army.
A doctor and a chambermaid observe the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth. She repeatedly tries to remove a supposed bloodstain from her hand. Macbeth senses that death is near. He is without hope. The chambermaid reports the queen's death. Soldiers announce the approach of the Forest of Birnam. Macbeth calls for death or victory.
Macduff, who was once cut from his mother's womb, kills Macbeth, Macbeth is "cursed by God and man".
Malcolm is King of Scotland.
Barrie Kosky's theater often touches, but sometimes it grips by showing the familiar - the world, life, relationships between people - broken in such a way that it remains shockingly recognizable. In his Macbeth production at the Staatsoper, the director creates a darkness that provides additional density and results in the invisibility of all the characters.
"This darkness doesn't just come from Shakespeare's play or Verdi's score, it is the play itself. A darkness from which one cannot escape, which dominates the scene from the very first moment. I would say with regard to Shakespeare that no other of his works is so strongly characterized by it. And Verdi distilled the essence of it: an incredible, almost claustrophobic nihilism," says the director.
For this production, we recommend a minimum age of 16.
The variety of this opera and the dangerous beauty of some scenes are fascinating, even after repeated listenings. Already in the Preludio and in the Introduction of Act 1, everything is touched upon with a heavy sense of meaning: the dark, unison F minor melody in 6/8' time, the constantly recurring, piercing march-like dotting in the brass, the woodwind-influenced witches' laughter, the ominously repeated downward 32nd-note figure in the strings, which will reappear in the murder scene, as well as Lady Macbeth's elegiac sleepwalker melody. Even if the musical language has changed considerably over the last 170 years: Certain things such as Verdi's musical and motivic economy, his instrumental clarity in the interplay between the orchestra and the singers and his unerring sense of how to build up a dramaturgically concise internal tension are as fascinating today as they were then (Johannes Maria Staud)
One of the reasons why Macbeth was long overshadowed by many other Verdi operas was not only the rather unusual character of the work, but also the difficulty of adequately casting the two main roles. Lady Macbeth in particular, which is not as dramatically developed in Shakespeare as in Verdi, is one of the most difficult roles in opera literature. It demands a "prima donna assoulta" that is rarely found in any generation. Famous in this connection with Macbeth is a letter from Verdi to the librettist Salvadore Cammarano (1848), in which he wishes Lady Macbeth to have "una voce aspra, soffocata, cupa" ("a sharp, stifled, dark voice"). Verdi was concerned with a clear departure from the vocal-aesthetic ideal of pure, beautiful singing, even if he continued to build on the principles of the bel canto of his musical predecessors. (Michael Kraus)
