★★★★☆
After the dystopian grunge of Rufus Norris’s Shakespeare production, which is screaming away at the National Theatre, it is a pleasure to greet Phyllida Lloyd’s striking staging of Verdi’s powerful take on Macbeth at the Royal Opera House — previously the subject of mixed reviews, but back for its third revival.
True, there are things I wouldn’t miss in the designer Anthony Ward’s black universe: that golden cage, representing allure and entrapment, a nuisance when it starts spinning; and Glamis Castle’s water tap, handy for washing off incriminating stains, but an excrescence sticking out from a vaguely medieval wall. Still, under the revival director, Daniel Dooner, the settings, plus the orange-turbaned witches, slide in and out with a nifty panache otherwise missing from the