I went to Bath Opera again to see Macbeth, encouraged by a friend in the chorus. As last year, I left it to the last minute but they hadn’t sold out, so I was sold a seat in a block tucked between the main part of the stage and a catwalk-like projection down the middle of the auditorium. Although these seats hadn’t sold in large numbers in advance, several people who liked their opera in the round moved down into them at the interval. (Those in them also got their own personal bow from the cast.)
The programme didn’t say which version of Macbeth we were getting, but it was the later revision, shorn of various bits of dance music. Bravo to all performers and others involved!
Shakespeare’s play was a school set text for me (twice) and so remained in my mind throughout as a point of comparison. Lady M in Verdi’s version is rather more of a sensualist (I can’t imagine Shakespeare’s leading the company in a drinking song). Small groups of people (Banquo’s murderers, the witches) get expanded into a chorus. Famous speeches survive in attenuated form (‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ is represented just by its last couple of lines). And as well as Shakespeare’s play one senses bel canto opera being transformed into something new.