Verdi's Macbeth, Welsh National Opera
/Verdi's Macbeth
Sung in Italian with surtitles in English (and Welsh in Cardiff and Llandudno)
Touring
Verdi described Macbeth as 'one of mankind's greatest creations'. His opera based on the play was part of the Welsh National Opera's autumn Shakespeare400 Season. WNO Artistic Director David Pountney said ‘It's a marvellous opportunity for us to bring together enormously varied works which Shakespeare’s works have inspired.’
Welsh National Opera / Opera Cenedlaethol Cymru
Creative Team
Conductor: Andriy Yurkevych
Director: Oliver Mears
Set & Costume Designer: Annemarie Woods
Lighting Designer: Kevin Treacy
Assistant Director/Choreographer: Anna Morrissey
Associate Choreographer: Maxine Braham
Staff Director: Caroline Chaney
Fight Director: Kevin McCurdy
Video Designer: Duncan Mclean
Cast
Macbeth: Luis Cansino
Lady Macbeth: Mary Elizabeth Williams (until October 12), Miriam Murphy (from October 26)
Macduff: Bruce Sledge
Banquo: Miklós Sebestyén
Lady-in-waiting: Miriam Murphy (until October 12), Fiona Harrison-Wolfe (from October 26)
Malcolm: Simon Crosby Buttle
Duncan: Stuart Hulse
Doctor/Servant: Martin Lloyd
Assasin/Apparition: George Newton-Fitzgerald
September 10, 15, 17, 24, 2016. Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Wales.
UK Tour:
October 12, 2016. The Bristol Hippodrome
October 23, 2016. Venue Cymru, Llandudno, Wales
October 26, 2016. New Theatre Oxford
November 9, 2016. Birmingham Hippodrome
November 2, 2016. Mayflower Theatre Southampton
Funding and Sponsorship:
A co-production with Northern Ireland Opera
On Twitter:
@WNOtweet
For More Information:
https://www.wno.org.uk/event/macbeth
Selected Reviews:
The Stage review (3 stars): "There are lots of good things... Mears and his designers refer to more than late 20th-century conflict, with a poignant video of devastation and tragic loss of life and hope accompanying the moving chorus of Scottish refugees... But the decision to replace some of Verdi’s own considered revisions to the piece – made nearly 20 years following its 1847 premiere – with his weaker first ideas hampers the evening’s success, as does the indifferent conducting." "The overall result may be uneven, but at its best the show offers genuine musical and theatrical insight."
https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2016/macbeth-review-at-wales-millennium-centre-cardiff/
Guardian review (3 stars): "feels like a transposition of the Troubles to Caledonia." "The WNO’s musical virtues allied with heart-rending scenes rescue a crass, gruesome Northern Ireland Opera production of the Scottish play [2014]." https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/11/macbeth-review-wales-millennium-centre-cardiff-welsh-national-opera-wno
Telegraph review (3 stars): "Verdi's Macbeth deserves better than this Tarantino rip-off... this wasn’t a performance of great distinction." "Oliver Mears’s staging, transferred from Northern Ireland Opera, has a certain brute force, but the ideas behind it are jejune." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opera/what-to-see/verdis-macbeth-deserves-better-than-this-tarantino-rip-off--revi/
Independent review (3 stars): "Among the many opera composers besotted with Shakespeare, Verdi burns brightest to date, coming closest to - and maybe even matching - the Bard’s dramatic genius. His Macbeth is both tempest and cold fire; through music of potent expressive force laying bare the banality of evil which underpins the savage ambition, lust and violence at the heart of the play. Director Oliver Mears strives towards this unholy marriage in his dystopian, battle-weary production for Welsh National Opera, set in a semi-destroyed Scottish tenement." http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/reviews/macbeth-wales-millennium-centre-cardiff-review-wonderfully-vigorous-but-lacking-psychopathic-a7311136.html
