OPERA

Opera review: Macbeth, Royal Opera House

Covent Garden has a truly formidable Lady Macbeth in Netrebko

The Sunday Times
A voice in its prime: Anna Netrebko as the Royal Opera’s Lady Macbeth
A voice in its prime: Anna Netrebko as the Royal Opera’s Lady Macbeth
BILL COOPER

The star Russian soprano Anna Netrebko has garnered a reputation in London as a bit of a canceller, having pulled out of two of her three most recent scheduled appearances with the Royal Opera, in 2014 and 2016. She did, though, turn up for a few Mimis in one of the last revivals of the old John Copley Bohème in 2015.

Her appearance in Verdi’s Macbeth, in the current revival of Phyllida Lloyd’s 2002 production, went some way to explaining why she decided to drop Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust and Bellini’s Norma from her repertoire. Her voice has grown bigger, darker and more dramatic in the 18 years since she delighted us all here as a slender and elegant Audrey Hepburn-lookalike Natasha in the