Verdi’s lean, mean opera lacks a lead to match
Opera Macbeth English Touring Opera, Hackney Empire, London E8 ★★★★★
You can’t go far wrong with Verdi’s Macbeth. It’s such a marvellously lean and mean opera, with a wellknown plot matched to a whip-smart score that wastes no time and takes no prisoners. Yet to perform it well is a challenge for a smaller company with limited resources, and English Touring Opera’s new production is an admirable achievement, albeit one with room for improvement.
It has been directed in fairly straightforward style by James Dacre who sets the action in a high-security concrete bunker – the modern equivalent of a medieval fortress. Armed with AK-47S, the warring factions fight guerrilla style, though for some reason the officer class is dressed in natty suits and their womenfolk look as neat as corporate PAS. The witches, more engagingly, are presented as wimpled Sisters of Mercy – an idea unjustified by their description in the libretto, yet it somehow convinces in the heat of the theatrical moment. Macduff is a slave to the bottle, Lady M drinks poison to put an end to herself. So it’s all quite lively, moving at a lick, without pauses between the scenes.
The weak link, sadly, is ETO stalwart Grant Doyle in the title role. He’s overstretched, both vocally and histrionically – too mild-mannered to play this character with any conviction, and reliant on a pleasant baritone too lightweight to plumb the depths of cruelty, terror and remorse that both drama and music suggest. As a result, the character comes across merely as a man hen-pecked by his domineering wife. That role is sung with notable distinction by Madeleine Pierard, a soprano who may not meet Verdi’s stipulation of a “rough, hollow, stifled” voice, but certainly attacks the part with glowing tone and stylistic panache.
Andrew Slater is a woolly and woofy Banquo; Amar Muchhala sings Macduff ’s aria with warmth and plangency. The chorus, which has its work cut out in this opera, is excellent throughout, and Gerry Cornelius conducts a responsive orchestra with all the necessary impetus and bravura. If Doyle could infuse his interpretation with more menace and aggression, this Macbeth would rank as one of ETO’S finest recent achievements.
I do wonder, however, about the wisdom of presenting the opera in English translation. This is a story with which almost everyone in the audience will be familiar, and there are lines in Andrew Porter’s version – “Out, I tell you, accursed bloodstain”, for example – that sound faintly ludicrous in comparison to Shakespeare’s “damned spot”. Wouldn’t it be better to leave the text shrouded in Italian and let the audience fill in the words from their own school-day memories?
Touring until May 31. Details: englishtouringopera.org.uk