Most operagoers know Verdi’s “Macbeth” as a deeply serious opera about coldblooded ambition and its dire consequences, a tragedy limned by Verdi in powerfully dramatic strokes. How wrong we are! The silly Eurotrash production by David Alden now on view at Lyric Opera presents the murderous Macbeths as dysfunctional spouses at the center of a campy, creepy sitcom. “Will and Grace,” meet “Mac and Lady.”
Director Alden, the gimmick-prone director who was responsible for last season’s cartoonish take on “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny,” doesn’t appear to like “Macbeth” very much. Why else would he treat it as a “sick black comedy” (his words), trivializing the opera Verdi wrote, consistently undermining the atmosphere of fear and foreboding evoked by the music?
In Lyric’s first “Macbeth” since 1981, a co-production with the Houston Grand Opera, the witches are dominatrixes who carry black handbags and wiggle like the Supremes in tight red leather dresses. Mr. and Ms. Macbeth share an empty suburban living room done up in tacky wallpaper through which the English army storms in at the end of the opera. Macbeth peers into his future via a scratchy home movie featuring the boy king Fleance with a paper crown. The way Alden presents these apparitions is so tacky that we are encouraged to laugh at Macbeth’s terrified reactions. Ah, irony.
There are design touches that might have worked in a staging more coherent, more respectful of the original. The Macbeths, Franz Grundheber and Catherine Malfitano, attempt to embrace across an armoire that later serves as the coffin of the murdered king Duncan. The pair sit at opposite ends of a blood-red sofa that tells us all we need to know of their marital woes following the murders; the same couch later becomes their funeral bier.
But mostly the artistic team–which includes designer Charles Edwards, costumer Brigitte Reiffenstuhl and lighting designer Duane Schuler–goes in for the garish, gory, melodramatic and obvious. None of this is as much shocking as boring. Contemporary punk wigs and attire are mixed with traditional tartans and kilts to dislocate the story in time. The harsh lighting scheme casts expressionistic shadows on the walls of Edwards’ weird sets, while Lady Macbeth’s hand is illuminated in crimson during her sleepwalking monologue. Out, out, damned spotlight!
All too aware of the lost cause on stage, Asher Fisch pleaded Verdi’s case with excitement and intensity in the pit. Like so much early-middle Verdi, the score shifts between brash vigor and gloomy introspection. The Israeli conductor (well-remembered for his “Madama Butterfly” here in 1998) chose tempos, articulations and dynamics that stressed, rather than reconciled, this dichotomy. Some of his conducting felt hard-driven, some slow, but overall he proved an impressive Verdian. The orchestral work was often brilliant, with special attention given to the composer’s highly original instrumental detail.
Grundheber owns the ideal baritone for Macbeth, full and open, rich and steady, yet able to make potently dramatic use of the many sotto voce effects marked in the score. In this production he got to sing Macbeth’s brief death aria from the 1847 version of the score. (The revised 1865 version otherwise was used.) He acted with authority, unfazed by all the indignities the director had him execute, such as wrapping himself in a huge banner emblazoned with the words “Nessun nato di donna” (No man born of woman) before his execution.
Fresh from singing Beatrice in the Lyric’s world-premiere of William Bolcom’s “View from the Bridge,” Malfitano had far more to give Lady Macbeth theatrically than she did vocally. She held nothing back from her performance, which had all the dramatic imagination and temperament one expects of this artist. But she never was a dramatic soprano, and her attempts to pump up her essentially lyric instrument resulted in a fair amount of labored vocalism, technical fakery and curdled top notes. As with the rest of this misbegotten “Macbeth,” one took what was good about her performance and tuned out the rest.
Roberto Aronica was a strong Macduff, his large, well-focused tenor making a positive contribution to the ensembles even if it was not especially warm or colorful. Raymond Aceto made a sturdy Banquo, rolling out a bass of impressive size and weight as the doomed commander. Michael Sommese, a freshman in the Lyric Opera Center, delivered the brief role of Malcolm with a firm, pleasing tenor.
One curious phenomenon was the desperate attempts to rev up applause led by Lyric’s artistic director, Matthew Epstein, who has become the company’s most ardent claquer. It is not a seemly role for a top official of a respected international company.
In sum, this is a considerable step downward for Lyric after the triumphant new productions that have opened thus far.
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“Macbeth” plays through Dec. 18 at the Civic Opera House. Phone 312-332-2244.
