MACBETH

Last night I saw my first full-fledged opera, MACBETH, at the Civic Opera House. Directed by Barbara Gaines of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, it was a wonderful experience and thoroughly enjoyable. I will always prefer a strong dramatic performance of such a tragedy, but the emotion that the music brings to the tale is undeniably powerful.

The scale of opera does not work well with detail and nuance, so much of that was lost, but some of the staging ideas were quite powerful. Instead of three witches to intrigue and challenge Macbeth, there were three covens of witches, at least 35 in number. Rather than three murderers to assassinate Banquo, there were three squadrons of murderers. Of course, this is where the work has slotted the impressive chorus, but the scale of numbers involved was impressive and moving.

In terms of the direction, Gaines did manage to bring in that occasional detail that worked well. Lady Macbeth is dressed in pure white during the murder of Duncan, and still grabs the dagger and smears the sleepy guards. She came back splattered in bright red and berated Macbeth for his cowardice; they left the stage with him wiping his bloody hands on the trail of her dress.

As to the acting, this was at least my 17th time seeing MACBETH live in various interpretations and structures. Nadja Morgan was amazingly powerful as Lady Macbeth, or Lady as Verdi is known to refer to the Queen. In Verdi/Gaines staging, Lady is the power cell that drives the action. She is much more pushy and direct in gaining power for the couple. She moves candles on the stage to set a circle of fire for Macbeth and sings the soprano part with power that belies her smaller frame. Soaring vocals of delight in murder and greed and power in the actress, dressed mainly in monochrome, set each scene. She is in red in act I, driving the murder plans; white in act II, then black for the onstage funeral of Duncan, something I have never seen. Even in darkest black, first one shoulder and then the other are uncovered, constantly drawing attention. In act III she is in spangly silver for the banquet, where she drinks enough wine to blitz anyone. As Macbeth chases Banquo's ghost away, she is literally crawling across the table to reach for more wine, nearly collapsing on the table to refer to HIM as a disgrace.

Truly, I felt that it took a German woman singing in Italian to power the great English play about the murdering Scottish couple to life. My 17th Lady Macbeth was certainly the most powerful.

Another Gaines touch: the first appearance of the Ghost of Banquo was a neat surprise. Macbeth is toasting him on the table (there was lot of that) when Banquo suddenly appears right out of the dangling chandelier, leaning down and grabbing Macbeth by the shoulders.

It was a fine experience, though it would likely take another script I am very familiar with the bring me back for another opera.

The show ran ten minutes late, causing me to miss the 10:40 train and wait for the 12:40 AM, but that only added to the adventure and fun of the night. I had not been in the Opera House since a 1966 Yardbirds concert when Jeff Beck was playing lead. As I waited to get off the train at 1:30, a man was talking to the conductor about a concert he was at recently and how great oldtimer Jeff Beck was. An amazing coincidence, and he was equally surprised when I told him. That man was not coming from the Opera House.