Late in life, working at the height of his powers, Giuseppe Verdi turned to Shakespeare for inspiration. With the assistance of librettist Arrigo Boito, the composer created a pair of consecutive masterpieces, “Otello” and “Falstaff.”
That was not the first time the Bard of Avon had attracted Verdi, but the result in 1847, his treatment of “Macbeth,” was less than astounding.
So, when a subsequent production was offered for Paris in 1865, Verdi substantially rewrote the score. The reception, however, was not much warmer. Perhaps English music critic Francis Toye summed it up best when in 1931 he described the opera as “a splendid, uncommonly interesting failure.”
Los Angeles Opera is opening its 2016-17 season with “Macbeth,” starring its most popular and enduring tenor-turned-baritone, Plácido Domingo, in the title role, accompanied by a thunderbolt of a Russian mezzo-soprano, Ekaterina Semenchuk, as the lady who drives her husband to bloodier and bloodier heights.
For the most part, this production is a distinct improvement on L.A. Opera’s first attempt in 1987, which starred Justino Diaz onstage with Domingo making his conducting debut wielding a baton instead of a sword on the podium. That production was an ill-fitting affair that took its visual cues from Akira Kurosawa’s samurai “Macbeth,” “Throne of Blood.”
The current interpretation, directed by Darko Tresnjak, with a grab bag of costumes by Suttirat Ann Larlarb, is performed on a split-level, bunker-like set designed by Tresnjak and Colin McGurk. It’s very effective musically, but equally eccentric – a witches brew that stirs Shakespeare’s “Scottish Tragedy” together with visuals inspired by Francisco de Goya’s “Black Paintings” of demonic covens and winged hobgoblins. It’s a production that could have benefitted greatly by adhering Mies van de Rohe’s famous axiom, “Less is more.”
When Los Angeles Opera performed its inaugural season in 1986, it was Domingo who strode onstage as the jealous Moor, Othello, and proclaimed “Esultate!” He was at the peak of his tenorial powers and it marked the beginning of a glorious era with Domingo starring in one role after another.
Like the legendary voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully (who will sadly be departing in a few days), Domingo’s voice has been a mainstay ofcultural life in Los Angeles for more than 30 years.
Domingo, however, has announced no plans to retire. In fact, since downshifting his vocal range to a (light) baritone 10 years ago, roles like Simon Boccanegra, Germont and Macbeth suddenly became available. So he just keeps going and going and going.
Another significant milestone for the company was the addition of James Conlon as its principal conductor/music director. Since his appointment in 2006, Conlon (like a mighty Siegfried) has re-forged the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra into a world-class ensemble.
A Verdian of the first order, his musical interpretation of this “Macbeth” is a sonic powerhouse, a combination of sound and fury signifying a great deal.
While Macbeth may be the man in Shakespeare’s spotlight, it’s clear Verdi found Lady Macbeth a more inspiring source for vocal magnitude than the malleable husband she manipulates to the throne.
At 75, Domingo may continue to astound and please audiences as opera’s Energizer Bunny, but it’s Semenchuk’s performance as the woman-of-steel that drives this production, culminating in her sleepwalking aria, “Una macchia,” when all that blood and guilt finally catch up with her.
No longer the “Esultate”-shouting Otello, Domingo’s Macbeth comes across as so guilt-ridden he’s stooped by the weight of his own conscience. We never get a sense of him as the vicious, sword-wielding warrior. His most effective moments are reflective, as in the aria “Pietà, respetto, amore” when he questions the ambition that has driven his actions.
The production is at its best when the staging is at its simplest. Unfortunately, much of the time it is a cluttered collision of design schemes. And with nary a clan tartan in sight, these warring Scots look more like refugees from “Game of Thrones” and “The Canterbury Tales.” They are constantly surrounded by a gaggle of long-tailed demons that combine Goya’s gargoyles with the flying monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz” and those slinky felines in “Cats!”
At one point they participate in a “ballet” during which they squat and leer over a row of infant-filled cradles and expose their backsides to the audience. It has to rank (and rank it is) as the most grotesque moment in L.A. Opera history.
The supporting cast features the resounding voice of Roberto Tagliavini as Banquo, with tenors Arturo Chacòn-Cruz as Macduff, and Josh Weeker as Malcom.
Based on Verdi’s 1865 revised version, with the insertion of Macbeth’s death scene from the original, it is Conlon’s adroit conducting that infuses the opera with the thunder it deserves, accompanied by the fine choral preparation by Grant Gershon.
