Verdi’s admiration for Shakespeare led to such masterpieces as Othello and Falstaff, and if the earlier Macbeth isn’t on their exalted level it’s still a powerfully dramatic opera that hews closely to the original’s story line. The MET’s production retains the dark aura of the opera while updating it to a vaguely post-modern context. So the witches are bag ladies in various stages of decrepitude, with children in tow. The Banquet Scene features lowered chandeliers, a plethora of chairs, and a slew of extras dressed in tuxedos and party gowns. Macbeth sports a leather coat, the soldiers are in drab brown uniforms and seem to have fingers on their triggers even when they’re supposed to be in non-threatening situations. Director Adrian Noble also has Lady Macbeth do an inordinate amount of writhing around and singing from a lying-down position, adding to the feeling that a less interventionist directorial hand might have generated more impact.
Simon Keenlyside smolders dangerously in the title role of Mozart’s version of the legend of Don Jua...
Concert and documentary celebrating the 1st Anniversary of Moscow’s Zaryadye Hall
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make...
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the...
At the beginning of 1964, the music world experiences something completely unexpected. Maria Callas ...
A young woman, married to a wealthy man, but miserably lonely; trapped within a world ruled with an ...
The gorgeous and evocative Otto Schenk/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production continues with this sec...
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the N...
Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of No...
The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pag...
When this sumptuous production by Giancarlo del Monaco opened in 1995, legendary tenor Plácido Domin...
The water fairy Rusalka falls in love with an earthly prince. In vain, Father Aquarius warns her. He...
Passion, jealousy and betrayal take center stage at Londons Royal Opera House in a spectacular produ...
Takarazuka Revue's Phantom based on the play by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit.
Inspired by one of the twentieth century's greatest novels, composer Lorin Maazel evokes Orwell's to...
A version of Benjamin Britten's opera based on the Melville story. Will the virtuous young sailor Bi...
What happened to Figaro and his friends after the events told in Rossini’s and Mozart’s operas? One ...
This filmed version of Strauss' shocker features Teresa Stratas as opera's most depraved teenager, a...
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco...