Programme booklet »Macbeth«

GIUSEPPE VERDI

MACBETH

CONTENTS

P.

4

SYNOPSIS P.

9

THE BIRTH OF ITALIAN MUSIC THEATRE PHILIPPE JORDAN P.

14

ADAM AND EVE’S DANCE OF THE DEATH IN ANTI-EDEN BARRIE KOSKY IN AN INTERVIEW P.

19

LADY MACBETH ON THE COUCH SIGMUND FREUD

P.

22

BETWEEN TRASHY HORROR AND CONCRETE BUNKER ANDREAS LÁNG P.

28

EQUIVOCATION –

BY THE JUGGLING FIENDS? SERGIO MORABITO P.

33

THE RAVEN EDGAR ALLEN POE P.

36

IMPRINT

GIUSEPPE VERDI

MACBETH MELODRAMA in four acts Text FRANCESCO MARIA PIAVE &

ANDREA MAFFEI based on the play

by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ORCHESTRA

STAGE MUSIC

1 flute / 1 piccolo / 2 oboes 1 cor anglais / 2 clarinets 2 bassoons / 4 horns 2 trumpets / 3 trombones 1 cimbasso / timpani / percussion violin I / violin II / viola cello / double bass 1 piccolo / 2 oboes / 4 clarinets 2 bassoons / 1 contrabassoon 4 horns / 6 trumpets / 1 flugelhorn 3 trombones / percussion

AUTOGRAPH Ricordi archives, Milan (1st version)

Bibliothèque nationale de France (2nd version) WORLD PREMIÈRE (1st version) 14 MARCH 1847 Teatro della Pergola, Firenze WORLD PREMIÈRE (2nd version) 21 APR 1865 Théâtre Lyrique, Paris PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 28 APR 1933 DURATION

3H

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

MACBETH

SYNOPSIS ACT 1 Introduction The witches tell what they are up to.

Macbeth and Banco, the king’s generals, come from a battle.

The women salute Macbeth, the Lord of Glamis, prophetically as Lord of Cawdor and then as King of Scotland. Banco also wants to know his future. He is to become the father of kings.

Soldiers announce the appointment of Macbeth as Lord of Caw­ dor. Macbeth shudders at the thought of the violence with which he could carry out the second prophecy. Banco sees through his temptation.

Chorus The witches expect Macbeth to visit them again soon.

A letter from her husband tells Lady Macbeth about the en­ counter with the witches. She knows his ambition, but doubts his willingness to use violence.

Cavatina She is determined to get rid of his inhibitions.

A servant announces the imminent arrival of king Duncan.

Lady Macbeth puts all of her hopes on the night the king will next spend under her roof. Before the arrival of the king and his retinue, Macbeth and the lady find time to exchange plans.

March Grand Scene Macbeth envisions a bloody dagger leading him to the king’s bed­room. At the agreed signal, he infiltrates the king’s chamber.

Duet After the murder, the completely distraught Macbeth refused to enter the room again to slip the murder weapon onto the sleeping guards. Lady Macbeth does it.

There is a knock at the gate. Lady Macbeth takes her husband away with her. Macduff and Banco discover the murdered vic­ tim and sound the alarm.

Previous pages: KS ANNA NETREBKO as LADY MACBETH

4

SYNOPSIS

Finale I All rush in cursing the murderer and appealing for God’s swift judgment.

ACT 2 Duncan’s son Malcolm has fled to England. He is considered to be his father’s murderer. Macbeth is king. To prevent the prophe­cy that Banco will become the father of kings, he decides to kill Banco and his son Fleance.

Aria Lady Macbeth is intoxicated by her power over life and death.

Chorus Murderers hired by Macbeth ambush Banco and his son.

Grand Scene Banco, who despite his suspicions accepted Macbeth’s invita­ tion, is murdered. Fleance escapes.

Finale II The new royal couple are hosting a party. Lady Macbeth sings a drinking song. One of the murderers reports Banco’s death and Fleance’s escape to Macbeth.

When Macbeth tries to sit on a vacant chair, Banco’s ghost sits on him. Lady Macbeth and the guests do not see him. The ghost disappears. Macbeth has the drinking song repeated. Banco’s ghost reappears. A distraught Macbeth decides to revisit the witches. The lady admonishes his fear of ghosts. The festive guests observe their ruler’s breakdown. Macduff, a Scottish nobleman, plans to leave the country.

5

SYNOPSIS

ACT 3 Introduction The witches are at work.

Grand Scene Macbeth wants to know his fate. The witches summon the spir­ its. They prophesy: Macbeth should beware Macduff; no one born to a woman can wound Macbeth; until the forest of Bir­ nam moves against him, Macbeth is invincible. He then wants to know whether Banco’s gender will rule. Eight kings appear, a mirror is carried by the last one: Banco. Laughing, he shows the long line of his crowned offspring. Macbeth passes out.

Duet Lady Macbeth receives a report of the apparitions. Macbeth and his wife will destroy Macduff and Banco’s families.

6

MACBETH

ACT 4 Chorus A refugee camp on the border between Scotland and England.

Large parts of the Scottish population are fleeing from the tyranny of Macbeth.

Aria Macduff thinks of his wife and children that he left in Scot­ land. Macbeth has murdered her. Macduff wants to take God’s vengeance.

Malcolm is on his way to Scotland with an English force. In the forest of Birnam, he orders the soldiers to camouflage them­ selves with branches. The refugees follow the army.

Grand Scene A doctor and a chambermaid watch the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth. Repeatedly she tries to remove an imagined blood stain on her hand.

Aria Macbeth senses death is at hand. He is without hope.

The maid reports the death of the queen. Soldiers announce the approach of Birnam Forest. Macbeth calls for victory or death.

Battle Macduff, who was once cut from his mother’s womb, kills Macbeth.

Macbeth’s End Macbeth is defeated “cursed by God and men.”

Victory Anthem Malcolm is proclaimed King of Scotland.

7

PHILIPPE JORDAN

THE BIRTH OF ITALIAN MUSIC THEATRE THE SUBTLETIES OF THE MACBETH SCORE With his Macbeth, Verdi deliberately stepped away from the established op­ era traditions of his day and created genuine music theatre. His initial at­ tempts and foray into this area can al­ ready be found in Nabucco and Ernani, but in Macbeth he achieved a radical step forward, undoubtedly triggered by Shakespeare’s text. The composer’s ge­ nius truly flared up during the process of setting the work of the great Eng­ lish dramatist to music, and existing, nascent artistic aspirations thus came to the fore.

In other words: Shakespeare dazzled Verdi and inspired him to ever greater achievements (just as Schiller later did in the case of Don Carlos). There is no other explanation for the fact that here, for example, for the first time the vocal lines and melodies stem from declama­ tion that is driven more by the idea of the play, or determined by the drama­ turgy of the scene, rather than by purely musical central themes. There are cer­ tainly several more conventional pas­ sages in the first version of 1847 which seem to be primarily about coloratura and virtuosity and which Verdi then LUCA SALSI as MACBETH

FREDDIE DE TOMMASO as MACDUFF

eliminated almost in their entirety in the second and final version of 1865.

But a great deal existed in its revo­ lutionary modern form from the very beginning – Lady Macbeth’s great sleep-walking scene in act 4 is an out­ standing example. It is truly fascinat­ ing how much this central scene, which the composer wrote when he was not yet 35, foreshadows Verdi’s later works in its entire structure and musical lan­ guage, including a role model for Eboli or Amneris; the use of chromaticism even anticipates Falstaff. An ABA or AB structure typical of the day, or a stanza form, is nowhere to be found. On the contrary: the great monologue by Lady Macbeth comprises three parts of dif­ ferent lengths and a very long coda, in which listeners are supposed to lose themselves almost as much as the spirit­ ually enraptured lady in her fearful fan­ tasies and neurotic compulsions.

But the famous “patria oppressa” chorus, also in act 4, has nothing in common with what Verdi had written up to that point; in its complexity we can already sense the great Requiem of 1874. And even the often-underesti­

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PHILIPPE JORDAN

mated entrance music of King Duncan in act 1 surprises us with its unusual 6/8 time signature, which cleverly combines courtly and martial character – the ear­ lier Verdi (and most of his colleagues) would probably have written a simple 4/4 time signature here. The height­ ened expectations prompted by mu­ sical dramaturgy or combinations of individual motifs in the “preludio” (not the overture!) to the opera – beginning of act 3, cries from the first witches’ chorus, the sleepwalking scene – also reveal the search for a conceptual reori­ entation. So in Macbeth Verdi was truly experimenting and trying out things that he could build on in his subsequent works (the great storm music in Rigoletto would not have been possible with­ out the experience the composer gained when writing Macbeth).

And in some places he even ven­ tured further harmonically than he ever did again (similar to Richard Strauss in his Elektra). The darkness that per­ meates the entire piece must have as­ tonished and perhaps even somewhat distressed and unsettled the audience at the première. In fact, it is perhaps his darkest stage work overall – how­ ever, this does not mean that the score is monochrome. Rather, it is extremely differentiated and diverse in its coloura­ tion but kept overall in a dark spectrum.

A lot of minor, muffled, mystical and threatening timbres, the frequent use of flat key signatures – he likes to alter­ nate between B-flat minor/F minor and D-flat major – create a basic atmosphere that captures and reflects the emotional state of the protagonist couple in their disturbing inscrutability.

Added to this is the correspond­ ing orchestration, in which the low registers of the orchestra, such as cor

anglais, bassoons, horns, cimbasso, violas, cellos and double basses, are given preferential treatment, and the high instruments are frequently omit­ ted; furthermore, much of the time the string section has to play “con sordino”, i.e. with mutes. After just a few bars, the audience is thus introduced to this spooky, cold northern ambience. Even the stage music in the famous proph­ ecy scene in act 3 with the vision of the eight kings no longer functions as a conventional banda, but as a sound of indeterminate, mysterious origin that mixes with the – in a sense real – sound of the orchestra in the pit.

But the way the witches are pre­ sented is also unparalleled in the history of music. Verdi, who provided the score with extremely detailed and very pre­ cise instructions (and was meticulous in ensuring that these were followed in the performances he supervised), writes at the beginning of the first scene “Tutte le streghe in scena … staccate e marcate assai: né dimenticarsi che sono streghe che parlano”, i.e. we must not be allowed to forget that witches are speaking here.

The courage to be ugly is called for in order to make the ladies of the chorus look as malicious and as much like Furies as possible. Loud whisper­ ing, deliberately adding a lot of air to the voice, frequent breathing between notes, panting – all of this is intended to symbolise the threatening unreality.

Nothing would be more wrong than if these passages declined into folklore, sounding too elegant and witty, like the “Zingarelle” chorus in La traviata.

The almost continuous “sotto voce” in the first Macbeth-Banco duet, which Verdi explicitly prescribed, also conveys terror and fear. How unusual for an

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THE BIRTH OF ITALIAN MUSIC THEATRE

Italian opera of this period: an opening duet that is deliberately sung in under­ tones, almost whispered! In general, it is striking how much Verdi diversifies in softer passages, and that “piano” and “pianissimo” markings seem to pre­ dominate. We find the first“ pianissis­ sissimo” (pppp) in bar 26 of the prelude, and with it the marking “dolcissimo”, and in the battle scene at the end of act 4, the women’s chorus must also sing “Cessa il fragor” in “pianissississimo” – we only find this kind of thing in the scores of the 20th and 21st centuries. Such instructions are of course integral to the composition and not just decorative, but are unfortunately all too often neglected.

Only if you play “come scritto”, i.e. as written in the music, will the extreme

spirit of the music of this work be real­ ised in all its genius. On the other hand, this also means that you must trust the abstract theatrical directness, relent­ lessness and severity of Verdi’s music and not allow yourself to be seduced by any false traditions, such as exaggerat­ edly sustained top notes or prolonged rubato!

The extent to which especially in Macbeth Verdi did not cater to audience preferences but was fascinated by the idea of theatre itself is clear from minor but not insignificant details: the ab­ sence of a typical love duet – immedi­ ately drawing criticism from the press at the première. But Verdi was a convinced reformer, and not, as Werfel once put it, a counter-reformer of opera.

11

Following pages:

FREDDIE DE TOMMASO as MACDUFF

DIRECTOR BARRIE KOSKY IN AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREAS & OLIVER LÁNG

ADAM

AND EVE’S DANCE OF THE DEATH IN ANTI-EDEN Your Macbeth production is cha­ racterised by intense darkness.

What is this darkness? Just a de­ piction of atmosphere, the dark­ ness of souls, or an expression of a psychological state? bk This darkness is not derived from Shakespeare’s play or Verdi’s score alone, it is the play itself. A darkness that you cannot evade, that dominates the scene from the first moment on. As for Shakespeare, I would say that none of his other works is this strongly in­ fluenced by it. And Verdi distilled the essence of it: an incredible, almost claustrophobic nihilism.

The darkness is repeatedly inter­ rupted by a single, very promin­ ently positioned area of light. Is this intended to remind us of an operating lamp, a searchlight, an X-ray eye? bk There are multiple associations with light. Two are important to me: a laboratory setting in which two beings – Macbeth and Lady Macbeth – step into

the beam of light from a lamp, as if set up for an experiment. And secondly: moths that are attracted to the light, fly away, return and seek the light. In the light they think they can solve their problems or at least be safe. But they are not; perhaps being in the light is even worse for them.

But in your production there are not only moths, there are also crows. Are these a symbol of the Macbeths’ guilt, of their guilty conscience? bk Crows are animals that appear in the mythology of many cultures. They can signify prophecies, like a Cassan­ dra with feathers. Whatever they call out, whatever they mean to you – that can happen. And they are a symbol of death. In our case they actually seem dead, they just sit there and don’t fly.

Only towards the very end, when Lady Macbeth is mad and Macbeth is dead, do they come to life. This gives you the feeling that they could be inhabitants of hell. Because what we experience in

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ADAM AND EVE’S DANCE OF THE DEATH IN ANTI-EDEN

these three hours is also a form of hell, a personal hell: an unbridled couple who, as if in a nightmare, have to repeat and relive every step of the murders they have committed, their complex relation­ ship, over and over again.

A crucial element in many productions of Macbeth is the witch­es. In your production, they are not real beings, they seem to exist only in people’s heads. bk There are several reasons for this.

The witches’ music in the opera is the diametrically opposed to what Shake­ speare conceived in the corresponding scenes in his play; some of it almost sounds like Offenbach. Verdi did this deliberately, he intentionally opted for the grotesque. When I was starting my work, I thought to myself: basically, you should never see the witches. Every­ thing they sing has to come from the darkness, and that is much more fright­ ening, more intense. After all, how do you create horror on stage? With uncer­ tainty. So you should not be able to de­ fine them exactly, for example by asking yourself: how many are there? Twenty?

Five hundred? A thousand? And who are they? Crows too? Singing crows?

Or are they memories of Macbeth? You don’t know – and this uncertainty is a very important feature of Macbeth, an opera full of riddles. Its incredible power comes from the unknown.

But what is real? Where is the limit? bk I can’t say, and I don’t want to define it. That is a question that each audience member must decide for them­ selves. Basically, when we put on thea­ tre, nothing is real; it’s not a documen­ tary, it’s about stepping into a dream.

Just think of ancient Greek theatre, which always sought to establish a close

connection with the unconscious. And I think we still carry this form of theatre within us. In the case of Macbeth, there is of course something real; it’s a rela­ tionship between a man and a woman, you see a whole range of emotions that are played out realistically. What they sing, what they perform: it’s real and three-dimensional. But it’s only as real as a dream seems real to us.

Before we look at the Macbeth couple in more detail, let’s stay with dreams for a moment. How should an audience feel upon waking up from this dark world: liberated, cathartically purified? bk For me, it’s important that you should feel uncomfortable after this evening. Because, as mentioned, the play is deeply pessimistic. While in Shakespeare’s King Lear the protago­ nist still gains a little insight, in Macbeth you experience only negativity and nihilism. There is no hope. Nothing. In the opera too: in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Otello, Don Carlo, catharsis is possible in all cas­es. In Macbeth? You are captivated by this world of sound, which can also be incredibly beautiful, and the contrast created by this beauty intensifies the effect even more.

In literature, plays and opera there are without question great, famous, darkly evil char­ acters. Do the Macbeths belong in this category? bk Yes, that’s a good question. How evil are the Macbeths? I think not terri­ bly evil at first, but then, after the mur­ der of Duncan, many doors open. And the two end up in a ghost train full of problems. They go in opposite direc­ tions: Lady Macbeth, initially strong, is exhausted at the end, like a ten-year-old child, and goes mad. Macbeth, who is

15

BARRIE KOSKY IN AN INTERVIEW

initially a nervous, neurotic little boy, mutates into a killing machine. This in­ credible tango between the two is unique in world literature. You watch them and ask yourself in amazement: why did they do that? What did they gain? And what all did they lose! We can’t help but be fascinated by this couple. In Verdi’s opera, it is not just a political story of a queen and a king, it is also an existential drama, a play about loneliness.

In this tango: what attracts the two to each other? bk There is no one single thing. It is a combination of many things. Of course, she is full of ambition and sees in him the possibility of becoming queen. But it is not just that. She loves him. And he loves her. And the fact that the two have no children brings them closer together.

The interesting thing is that they are very close at first, they almost devour each other – and then they drift apart.

Lady Macbeth lapses into madness, Macbeth into killing. We are shocked at how realistically and credibly this relationship is portrayed.

Timeless! bk Yes, because there is no point in telling this story if you think it is his­ torically distant and has nothing to do with us. We must see Macbeth as a part of us. The couple reflects something ab­ out people themselves.

You mentioned politics. Were you interested in the political aspects of the opera? bk For Shakespeare, the political ele­ ment was important because it was ab­ out the murder of a king. At that time, it was not a triviality to show something like that on stage. But in the opera, for me, it’s just subtext. What really in­ terested Shakespeare and Verdi was the characters and the relationships

between them. Of course, theatre is al­ ways political. But staging Macbeth as a contemporary political drama, as has often been done, doesn’t appeal to me personally. It can be done, and it has been done. But I find Macbeth deeper, more abstract, linked to mythological elements.

You have staged both versions of Macbeth, i.e. opera and play. Is there a point at which the thrust of the two works differs funda­ mentally? bk Absolutely, and that happens through the music. With Verdi’s brilliant score, with the sound of the orchestra, chorus and soloists, Verdi can express something in just one bar that Shakes­ peare needs a page to convey. Sometimes five notes is all it takes – and you know.

Consciously or unconsciously, people look for likeable cha­ racters in narrative works. The Macbeths are anything but that. bk They are in fact totally disagree­ able! But characters on the stage do not always have to be likeable, and those who are not are usually the more inte­ resting ones. Lear is not likeable, but he is fascinating. I don’t find Carmen very likeable, but what a complex per­ sonality! Don Giovanni too. Or Wotan.

Maybe we feel pity, but we don’t have to feel sympathy. In Macbeth we see an in­ credible dance of death between a man and a woman, a counter-model to Adam and Eve. A kind of anti-Eden. That by itself is fascinating. And if we’re honest, we all have a little bit of this anti-Adam and anti-Eve in us.

Shakespeare and Verdi are also distinguished by the fact that they don’t judge. What about the director Kosky? Does he allow himself to judge?

16

ADAM AND EVE’S DANCE OF THE DEATH IN ANTI-EDEN

bk No, I’m trying not to convey a judge­ment, the audience should do that for themselves. Two authors are particularly well-known for remain­ ing strictly neutral: Shakespeare and Chekhov. Both describe people with their problems, but they don’t take sides either way. Mozart doesn’t do that either, by the way. He portrays. There may be someone in the audience who despises the Count in Le nozze di Figaro, another sees him as a great guy, a third can’t even watch the opera. That is the magic of theatre. That there is not just one interpretation, but as many as there are people in the audience. The music is also ambivalent, I don’t hear the same thing as you hear. That is why it doesn’t make sense for a director to pass judge­ ment. A brilliant work like Macbeth of­ fers almost infinite possibilities. And we have to celebrate this diversity.

One last question: we know that the conductor of the première series, Philippe Jordan, values

you. What do you appreciate about his work? bk Philippe is not only a fantastic conductor, but he is also a very practi­ cal artist. This is clear from the fact that he comes to rehearsals. And he doesn’t want to know banal things like: what colour will the set be? He wants to know the intentions behind the direction. He is interested in the whole, not just the music. That is something I really appre­ ciate. And he is flexible and pragmatic: if there is a problem, he quickly comes up with a good solution. You can tell that he is a theatre person, someone who grew up in theatre and has carved his path through music theatre. People often think that rehearsals are an incre­ dibly long battle between an egomaniac conductor and an egomaniac director, plus egomaniac singers. My experience after 30 years shows that in 95% of cases this is not the case at all. For me, at least, good collaboration is important – and with Philippe this is a given.

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SIGMUND FREUD

LADY MACBETH ON THE COUCH FROM: SOME CHARACTER TYPES MET

WITH IN PSYCHO-ANALYTIC WORK – THOSE WRECKED BY SUCCESS. We may take as an example of a person who collapses on reaching success, af­ ter striving for it with single-minded en­ ergy, the figure of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. Beforehand there is no hesita­ tion, no sign of any internal conflict in her, no endeavour but that of overcom­ ing the scruples of her ambitious and yet

tender-minded husband. She is ready to sacrifice even her womanliness to her murderous intention, without reflecting on the decisive part which this woman­ liness must play when the question af­ terwards arises of preserving the aim of her ambition, which has been attained through a crime.

ACT 1 Scene 5 “Come, you spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.” “ ... to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers!”

ACT 1 Scene 7 “I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this.”

KS ANNA NETREBKO as LADY MACBETH

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SIGMUND FREUD

A single, slight sense of reluctance seizes her before the deed:

ACT 2 Scene 2 “Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t.”

Then, when she has become Queen through the murder of Dun­ can, she betrays for a moment something like disappointment, something like disillusionment. We cannot tell why.

ACT 3 Scene 2 “Nought’s had, all’s spent, Where our desire is got without content: ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”

Nevertheless, she holds out. In the banqueting scene which follows on these words, she alone keeps her head, cloaks her husband’s state of confusion and finds a pretext for dismissing the guests. And then she disappears from view. We next see her in the sleep-walking scene in the last act, fixated to the impres­ sions of the night of the murder. Once again, as then, she seeks to put heart into her husband: “Fie! my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard! What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”

She hears the knocking at the door, which terrified her husband after the deed. But at the same time she strives to “undo the deed which cannot be undone.” She washes her hands, which are blood-stained and smell of blood, and is conscious of the fu­ tility of the attempt. She who had seemed so remorseless seems to have been borne down by remorse. When she dies, Macbeth, who meanwhile has become as inexorable as she had been in the beginning, can only find a brief epitaph for her:

20

LADY MACBETH ON THE COUCH

ACT 5 Scene 5 “She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word.”

And now we ask ourselves what it was that broke this character which had seemed forged from the toughest metal? Is it only disillusionment – the different aspect shown by the accom­ plished deed – and are we to infer that even in Lady Macbeth an originally gentle and womanly nature had been worked up to a concentration and high tension which could not endure for long, or ought we to seek for signs of a deeper motivation which will make this collapse more humanly intelligible to us?

21

ANDREAS LÁNG

BETWEEN TRASHY HORROR AND CONCRETE BUNKER THE VIENNA STATE OPERA’S

CHEQUERED RESPONSE TO MACBETH

Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth didn’t have an easy time in Vienna. The start was bungled, the planned première in April 1848 at the Kärtnertor Theater came to nothing. The revolution and its con­ sequences, and the dislike by parts of the Viennese population of the annual Italian guest performances that were standard at the time were not a suit­ able platform for the latest work by the master from Busseto. The paradoxical result was that the performance of an opera by a composer who was a declared supporter of the revolution only became possible after the uprisings had been put down.

The première took place belatedly at the Kärtnertor Theater on 11 December 1849. The conditions were something else! The Italian singers in 1848 were not available, and the German-speak­ ing replacements were unable to cope with the demands of their parts. This was partly because they clearly were not at home in the music of the opera, and partly because they were miscast.

The baritone role of Macbeth was given to the bass Joseph Staudigl, and

the bass role of Banco was given to the baritone Gustav Hölzel, while Anna Maria Wilhelmine van Hasselt-Barth lacked the necessary vocal volume for Lady Macbeth. The theatre’s funds had been depleted by the unstable po­ litical situation, which also forced a stage setting that hardly deserved to be called such. Even so, for most critics the person responsible for all this was the composer. “Verdi has first verdified Victor Hugo, then Schiller, and now Shakespeare. Music should not be mis­ used like this,” was the Humorist’s take, two days after the première. Doyen of the critics Eduard Hanslick joined in.

“It is a shame and an outrage, the way that Verdi treats the dramas of Shakespeare and Schiller.” But Hanslick was a well-known fertile source of mis­ judgements, which have not signifi­ cantly affected the course of musical history. In the case of Macbeth, he was again out of step with the audiences, who attended 22 performances in the next three years, six of them even in Italian. While not a lot, it is still a fair number in the situation at that time.

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BETWEEN TRASHY HORROR AND CONCRETE BUNKER

However, this was followed by a long break, lasting eight decades, in which Macbeth was virtually ignored in Vienna, like other Verdi operas that were subsequently popular in Austria.

There were various reasons for this.

The Ricordi publishing house followed a marketing strategy of blackmail – if Vienna wanted a work by Verdi, it had to buy and perform a work by an un­ known composer – and regularly coun­ tered the ambitions of the Vienna State Opera to put a Macbeth, Don Carlo or Forza del destino on its schedule (even Aïda was only established in the reper­ toire by tricks and skilful intrigues on the part of the management). But there was also opposition from a powerful anti-Verdi movement. Anything not clearly influenced by Richard Wagner was regarded as unacceptable, and in any case banal, sparing any effort to perceive the unusually gripping drama behind the so-called “barrel organ mu­ sic”, and there was a general feeling of superiority over the Romance artist.

Woe betide any Italian or French com­ poser who mistakenly chose material in German or English as a basis for their own opera.

As late as 1945 Richard Strauss wrote in his artistic legacy to Karl Böhm: “I condemn Verdi’s Otello in its entirety, like all libretti based on clas­ sic dramas misshapen into opera texts … [a formulation every bit as unhappy as the thought it was intended to ex­ press!] They do not belong on the Ger­ man stage.” While Strauss’s rejection of any competition reducing his own royalties needs no further explanation, the uninformed prejudice of countless opera house directors who presented artistic trifles – at the Vienna State Opera, for example, pieces like Max von

Oberleitner’s Aphrodite, Raoul Mader’s Die Flüchtlinge, Antonio Smareglia’s Der Vasall von Szigeth or Carl Pfeffer’s Harold – while ignoring Verdi’s works of genius is simply astounding. Even the celebrations in 1913 to mark the cente­ nary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth failed to turn the trend around.

The situation only changed with the appearance of Franz Werfel’s bestseller Verdi: a novel of the opera in 1924. Sud­ denly, the Italian composer, who Wer­ fel portrayed as intensively and scru­ pulously struggling for artistic truth in music, was on everyone’s lips. With his novel, Werfel succeeded in dispelling many prejudices against Verdi and reha­ bilitating his artistic power. In addition, Werfel produced high-quality transla­ tions and new versions of several Verdi libretti, and translated and published letters of the composer, creating the basis for a genuine Verdi comeback. In Vienna there were also the efforts of the director-conductors Franz Schalk and Clemens Krauss who – like Fritz Busch in Germany – worked actively a redis­ covery or fresh discovery of Verdi.

In terms of premières, this resulted in 1930, a new production of Simon Boccanegra (after the piece had not been performed for 47 years), 1931, a new pro­ duction of La traviata, 1932, a première of Don Carlo and new productions of Aïda, Un ballo in maschera and Rigoletto, 1933, a première of Macbeth, 1934, a new production of Falstaff. On 11 May 1932 Julius Korngold summed up: “there will be well-nigh no forgotten Verdi opera.

A triumph by the genius – and the de­ feat of a sterile present.” Around a year later, Korngold followed this on the occasion of the Macbeth première with these words: “It is astounding in all the circumstances what unexpected power

23

ANDREAS LÁNG

these half-forgotten Verdi operas still possess… once they emerge from the grave, they live on, revealing the inter­ national dramatic genius, easily out­ shining the Italian opera composers in each of his creative periods.

Even so, this first Vienna State Opera’s Macbeth production only ran to eight performances, as a result of the stage setting. While the impressive sets were designed by Alfred Roller, and un­ doubtedly there were eye-catching fea­ tures like the large, brightly lit cauldron in the eery cave that almost filled the stage, regular patrons in particular suf­ fered from multiple visual déjà-vu mo­ ments, as for cost reasons, as the Wiener Zeitung noted, these were “effective pieces from the warehouse.”

Also, director Lothar Wallerstein, so often creative, lost his way in obses­ sion with details which ultimately had little effect. The overdone realism was also self-defeating in the “supernatu­ ral” passages. In particular, the banquet scene with Banco’s very earthly ghost, striding in and out of a door curtain, be­ came an unintended farce which evoked mockery from the audience.

The spoken verses put in the mouth of the mute Duncan were also met with incomprehension, and the numerous changes in the sequence of the action were inconsequential. Even so, Waller­ stein at least showed signs of directing, in contrast to Oscar Fritz Schuh, who was responsible for the next and subse­ quent premières. To mark the centenary of the first performance of a Verdi opera in Vienna (Nabucco, 1843), there was a new Macbeth under the baton of Karl Böhm on 4 April 1943.

While Böhm and above all Elisabeth Höngen as Lady Macbeth were fêted, the press were tight-lipped about the

staging, although this was governed by the Nazis and criticism was only pos­ sible with great care, if at all. Reviews either omitted the name of the director, citing only the set designer, Wilhelm Reinking, or praised Schuh with a few platitudes before emphasising the qual­ ities of the sets in detail, enhanced as they were by some successful lighting effects.

The outcome was seven sorry per­ formances – which was still one more than Schuh’s adaptation of the work ten years later for the temporary quarters at the Theater an der Wien after the war (again with Böhm as conductor). This time Caspar Neher as set and costume designer covered the deficiencies of the director’s blocking.

The first Macbeth staging in the Haus am Ring after 1955 made a very curious impression. Otto Schenk and his set de­ signer Rudolf Heinrich relocated much of the action in a blockhouse structure seen from different perspectives, inter­ rupted by the highly abstract scenes with the witches. It seemed rather as if Christa Ludwig, Sherrill Milnes, Karl Ridderbusch and company had wan­ dered into a mix of an American fort, Viking village and oversized cowshed – with gestures which at times seemed taken from the horror films of the silent era.

On the other hand, this initially sur­ prising archaism conveyed the spirit of the score significantly more clearly than the – for once – uninspired conducting of Karl Böhm, who evidently felt he was the indispensable custodian of the score. In any case Schenk came up with a straightforward production, but with­ out opting for the historical costume drama which was standard practice at the time (the première was on 18 April

24

BETWEEN TRASHY HORROR AND CONCRETE BUNKER

1970), choosing instead a thoroughly ambitious and relatively unconven­ tional reading.

The next new production, looked forward to with great anticipation, was presented on 7 February 1982, and re­ ceived standing ovations and several dozen curtain calls. The trio of singers Renato Bruson, Mara Zampieri and Nicolai Ghiaurov in particular were greeted with a seemingly unending storm of applause lasting around half an hour. There was a very different re­ ception for Giuseppe Sinopoli’s con­ ducting. Some saw him on this evening as the new leading Verdi conductor, alert to every nuance, while others felt his interpretation as at best interesting, at worse overdone and lacking in style.

And the staging? This was by the Eng­ lishman Peter Wood, and was a rollback to the 19th century.

Franz Endler sardonically described it in his column in the Presse. “The ques­ tion is whether Macbeth has to devolve into an orgy of witchy gesticulation and singing directly to the audience, with significant moments indicated solely by changes in the level of darkness of the scene. Two steps forward, three back... That’s a step back, however you regard it. It would have been bearable if collaboration with a director had made at least some of the singers into actors – but here only the house lighting and stage technicians benefitted from the opportunity to show that when faced by a large set concept they could change it noiselessly and light it accurately. We saw oversized set pieces in a sort of Eliza­bethan Renaissance style, with horror trimmings from a Romantic ghost train (set: Carl Toms) where the characters were left to their own de­ vices. In terms of the number of perfor­

mances (just under 50) this production was admittedly the most successful to date at the Vienna State Opera, and it stayed on the schedule for 20 years.

A new production directed by Vera Nemirova in December 2009 met with broad rejection. A dancing King Duncan in a kilt, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in a modern shower cabin, a wooden stage in the middle of the for­ est, witches as self-discovery artists, a freely invented pantomime to ballet music, murderers with red clown noses and red balloons – such elements caused many to overlook that Nemirova knew how to tell the story entirely consis­ tently. Set in an apocalyptic period, in a burned-out wood at the boundary between wilderness and civilisation, she had the audience participate in an incarnation process for the title figure which tried to squeeze out a certain uto­ pia from the gloomy material. The rejec­ tion was so great that the second series of performances, set for a few months after the première, was cancelled and replaced by performances of La traviata from the repertoire. With six per­ formances in all, this production was accordingly very short-lived.

In contrast, the production by Chris­ tian Räth (premièred in October 2015) was met with much less opposition.

The antagonist of the performers was a vast bunker-like concrete labyrinth which developed something like a life of its own, and affected the fates of the characters. An increasingly complex pre­sent-day setting which the char­ acters were finally lost in. The space changed between illusion and reality, and at the same time offered a reflec­ tion of the inner worlds of the charac­ ters. The psychological dissection Räth sought succeeded in a complex manner

25

BETWEEN TRASHY HORROR AND CONCRETE BUNKER

at many points (for example in the appa­ ritions scene in the third act), but only vesti­gially at others, such as the end of the first act or at Banco’s murder. In all, there were 24 performances up to 2019.

In the course of the renewal of central works in the repertoire by ex­ emplary productions, the première of the current staging took place under

musical director Philippe Jordan on 10 June 2021. Originally produced by Barrie Kosky at Zurich Opera House, it was revised for the Vienna State Opera in collaboration with (inter alia) Luca Salsi (Macbeth), Anna Netrebko (Lady Macbeth), Roberto Tagliavini (Banco) and Freddie De Tommaso (Macduff).

26

ROBERTO TAGLIAVINI

as BANCO

SERGIO MORABITO

EQUIVOCATION –

BY THE JUGGLIN FIENDS? In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the “bloody man” reporting on the battle com­ pared the two leaders of the royal army, Macbeth and Banco, with cannons – which did not yet exist in the 11th cen­ tury. Macbeth’s behaviour, as repre­ sented in the play, does not match the expectations of a human engine of war.

In the first three acts the general is re­ peatedly shown as timorous and archa­ ically reactive. Banco asks him, “Why do you start and seem to fear things that sound so fair?” (I. 3) Lady Macbeth repeatedly points out to him what faces he makes and makes him realise the need to “make our faces vizards to our hearts, disguising what they are.” (III, 2) In vain. When Ban­ co’s ghost appears, she says: “This is the very painting of your fear: | This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, | Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws | and starts (Impostors to true fear) would well become |A woman’s story at a win­ ter’s fire, | Authorised by her grandam.

Shame itself. | Why do you make such faces?” (III, 4) Delivered to the uncontrollable reac­ tions and impulses of his face, Macbeth is caught up in a level of experience which can be described as pre-animis­ tic, following Horkheimer and Adorno.

What Macbeth experiences as supernat­ ural – the appearances of the witches, the dagger and the ghost – points to

“the intricacy of the Natural in con­ trast to the individual […] It is not the soul which is transposed to nature, as psychologism would have it; mana, the moving spirit, is no projection, but the echo of the real supremacy of nature in the weak souls of primitive men.”1 Macbeth seeks refuge from the ar­ chaic fear in numbness. From the first scene in act 4, he is bespelled. This scene lies the foundation for fulfilling his wish “that I may sleep […] in spite of thunder.” This is the scene where the three witches at Macbeth’s demand conjure up three of their “masters”, and then, at his further urging, Banco’s de­ scendants.2 The first apparition, the “helmeted head”, warns him against Macduff.

Then the “blood-stained child” tells of his invulnerability and the “child crowned with a tree in his hand” fore­ tells he “shall never vanquished be.”

Now Macbeth is “whole as the marble, founded as the rock.” (III, 4) And he will barely remember in the further course of the piece that there was a time when: “My senses would have cooled | To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair | Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir, | As if life were isn’t.” (V, 5) However, with Macbeth’s growing human awareness, the desired forget­ fulness granted to him in his numbness as a mythical monster is increasingly

28

EQUIVOCATION – BY THE J UGGLING FIENDS?

clearly felt as alienation. Increasingly uninvolved and fatigued, he submits to the compulsion to repeat his bloody deeds, which have stopped obsessing his fantasy. Ambivalent, he clings to the promises of the “blood-stained child” and “child crowned with a tree in his hand”, constantly reassuring himself, as if he were desperately seeking an opening in his cage, while still knowing that he can never awake from the numb­ ness to life, but only to death.

It is striking that the declaration of the “helmeted head” lacks any of the riddling nature which would give it oracular status ahead of the pronounce­ ments of the two following apparitions, whose ambiguity at and as the end of the piece rebounds on Macbeth. As a completely noncryptic anticipation of the end, it functions as a self-fulfill­ ing prophecy. It drives what has been (at the latest since Macduff’s absence from Macbeth’s coronation) a mutual mistrust between the two. Macbeth’s henchmen, who Macduff eluded through flight, slaughter the family he left behind. (IV, 2) The news reaches him in exile in England (IV, 3) where he is told: “be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief | Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.”

As a challenge to the future, the statement of the “helmeted head” has a strategic nature. It serves to incite Macduff to revenge. This concludes its function. It is no longer considered in the further course of the piece, not even at the point where it could explain why Macbeth wants to avoid combat with Macduff. Instead, Macbeth cries to his pursuer: “my soul is too much charged | With blood of thine already.” (V, 7) Let us put Shakespeare’s dramatisa­ tion aside for a moment for the chroni­

cle it is based on. One thing is evident – Macduff and the unborn man are orig­ inally two different people. Hector Boece, the historian who served in Ho­ linshed’s translation as Shakespeare’s direct source, was the first to merge them. This explains why Macduff’s re­ venge is overmotivated in Shakespeare (the fact that he was born by c-section would have been sufficient qualifica­ tion, even without the loss of his wife and children).

Another point is that Macbeth’s story originally contained only two oracles, “no man born of woman” and the travelling wood. Boece is the first to have the soothsayers warn Macbeth about Macduff – although not yet in the context of the two oracles, which are at­ tributed to one witch. And Shakespeare was the first to have the oracles start di­ rectly with “Beware Macduff; | beware the Thane of Fife”.

At the same time, the foreshadow­ ing dynamic of the declaration by the “helmeted head” outweighs the entirely different mood of the foretellings of the other two child apparitions. The notes in the bilingual Reclam edition inter­ pret the significance of the declarations by the apparitions. The “helmeted head” is “Macbeth’s own head which Macduff will deliver to Malcolm”, the “bloodstained child” is “Macduff, freshly ripped from his mother’s womb”, the “child crowned with a tree in his hand” is “Malcolm, who will order the cutting of the branches and ultimately be the legitimate king.”

The attempt to read and understand the three apparitions in reverse order predates the audience reaction. The play itself has a level on which the action is interpreted in this way. Macbeth’s fate is decided at the latest at the point where

29

SERGIO MORABITO

he demands answers from the three witches. However, the apparitions con­ jured up by the witches present this fate in a misleading cryptic form. Macbeth can misunderstand their words as carte blanche for this reign of violence, and falls into the fiends’ trap in so doing.

In Macbeth’s own words when Bir­ nam wood approaches: “I […] begin | To doubt th’equivocation of the Fiend | That lies like truth.” (V, 4) And when he learns that Macduff was “from his mother’s womb | Untimely ripped”, he says: “And be these juggling fiends no more believed, | That palter with us in a double sense, | That keep the word of promise to our ear, | And break it to our hope.” (V, 8) This and other places show that the word “equivocation” is used by Shakespeare as a leitmotif in a clearly pejorative sense, as belonging to the ar­ senal of the fiends.

On the same lines, the apparitions are manifestations of a “higher” power (still ruling in the unsettled situation) and the witches are harbingers of a providential trial court. In addition, the oracles appear in the perspective of a guilty misunderstanding as a type of moral or ethical or religious exami­ nation which Macbeth fails. Macbeth should have listened more carefully to identify the signs of the upcoming trial.

The Christian authors noted the tricky nature of such an interpretation in a discussion of a related passage in the bible which is more detailed than their analysis of Shakespeare. 1 Samuel 28 presents the biblical prototype of a tyrant who goes to a necromancer. The Philistines have invaded the country, and in his difficulties Saul turns to the Lord. But “God […] no longer answers [him], either by prophets or by dreams.”

Saul told his attendants “find me a

woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her”, although he him­ self had driven out the mediums and spiritists from the land, as divination is forbidden for the Israelites. His men find the witch of Endor. Disguised, Saul goes to her, has her raise the dead prophet Samuel, and asks for his coun­ sel. Samuel refuses him, saying: “Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has departed from you and become your enemy? […] tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.” Stricken by these words, Saul falls to the ground.

This story was difficult to reconcile with the ban on pagan superstition. The distinction between theology and de­ monology was blurred if it was possible for a necromancer to have power over a prophet and God’s advice is revealed through the practice of the magic arts.

In a marginal note to his translation of the bible, Luther warned “everyone to understand the following ghost of Samuel correctly and know that Sam­ uel is dead and it is the Devil’s ghost that speaks with the witch and Saul, falsely taking Samuel’s person and name.” But what the evil spirit says, happens. There is no room in Luther for surprise – it provokes his interpre­ tation – but it is present in Banco’s reac­ tion to Macbeth’s elevation to Thane of Cawdor, as prophesied by the witches: “what, can the Devil speak true?” (I, 3)3 This question prompts Macbeth’s first great aside monologue, “Two truths are told […]” (I, 3) Jacques Bénigne Bossuet also stated his opinion on this. In his Politique tirée de l’Écriture sainte (1709) the court preacher and tutor to Louis XIV’s heir apparent writes that “it is neither in the

30

EQUIVOCATION – BY THE J UGGLING FIENDS?

power of a sorceress to raise the soul of a saint, nor in the power of the Devil, who according to some appeared in the form of Samuel, to predict the future so correctly.” For Bossuet, God was re­ sponsible for this event. “He wanted to teach us that He, when it pleased Him, permits the truth to be discovered by illegitimate means as punishment for those who make use of them.”

However, such an interpretation, declaring that raising the dead by a me­ dium is a revelation and that even this means is sanctified by God’s purpose, casts doubt on the deity Himself, and doubtless this was the danger which moved Luther to his judgement on the false nature of the event. More cautious than Bossuet, he draws (or assumes) no other lesson from this than the limited power of the “Devil’s ghost” and the witch serving it. The mistrust of moral satisfaction deriving from permitting “the truth to be discovered by illegiti­ mate means as punishment for those who made use of them”, would also be appropriate in the event portrayed in Macbeth.

It is not that Macbeth deceives himself about the true meaning of the oracles – the oracles themselves are deceived. They do not anticipate the future, they oppose it. In the epic clash with his weakened forces, the myth be­ stows his miracle weapons on Macbeth.

In connection with Macbeth’s warn­ ing to Macduff in their duel, “I bear a charmèd life” (V, 8), the declarations of

the apparitions should be understood as ritual blessings. Their words were synonymous with action – by speak­ ing them, they bless Macbeth. Their language is occult, magical, the words are a spell and blessing of archaic force: “Mythical fate had been one with the spoken word.”4 Certainly, it is the contradictions in this blessing which turn Macbeth into a monster, the well-judged blend of car­ rot and stick. The irreconcilably contra­ dictory statements goad him, madden him and break down his last inhibi­ tions – that he should beware Macduff, although no man born of woman can harm him; that he is invincible unless Birnam wood should advance on him – and yet Banco’s descendants will take his throne.

The oracles are not a trap for Mac­ beth. They only become one through their reinterpretation as a play on words. Instead of the rooted trunks of the trees of Birnam wood, the branches advance as metonymy on Macbeth, and the avenger was not born of woman but “from his mother’s womb | Untimely ripped.”

The oracles are not confirmed by their “fulfilment.” It would seem more accurate to call it “hollowing”, where language is not seen as a statement of a pre-specified meaning but as the possibility of liberation from one. The blurring of meaning and non-meaning would then be the hope described by the story of Macbeth.

1 Dialektik der Aufklärung, Frankfurt 1971, p. 17.

2 In Verdi‘s work, the 1st to 3rd scenes of act 3 correspond to it, but basically the “Gran scena delle apparizioni” spans and binds all five scenes of act 3 of the opera.

3 In the opera, Banco’s horrified Aparte, taken back too late into the piano, corresponds to her: “Ah! l’inferno il ver parlò!” (I, 3) 4 Dialektik der Aufklärung, Frankfurt 1971, p. 71

31

EDGAR ALLEN POE

THE RAVEN Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore – While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “ Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door – Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore – For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore – Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating “ ’Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door – Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; – This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you” – here I opened wide the door; – Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” – Merely this and nothing more.

LUCA SALSI

as MACBETH

33

EDGAR ALLEN POE

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore – Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;– ‘Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door – Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door – Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore – Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night‘s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning – little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door – Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered – Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before – On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore – Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of ‘Never – nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

34

T H E R AV E N

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore – What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom‘s core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion‘s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o‘er, But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o‘er, She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee – by these angels he hath sent thee Respite – respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! – Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted – On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore – Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore – Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore – Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting – “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night‘s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon‘s that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o‘er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted – nevermore!

35

ROBERTO TAGLIAVINI as BANCO

ALESSANDRA BAREGGI as FLEANCE

IMPRINT GIUSEPPE VERDI

MACBETH SEASON 2024/25 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 10 JUNE 2021 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Image concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN (Cover) All performance fotos by MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES All texts were taken from the Macbeth programme of the Vienna State Opera (première: 10 June 2021). Sigmund Freud, Lady Macbeth on the couch, from: Die am Erfolge scheitern, in: Einige Charaktertypenaus der psychoanalytischen Arbeit, Fischer, 1946 ENGLISH TRANS­L ATIONS Andrew Smith. IMAGE REFERENCE Cover: Margolies, John, Dracula’s Castle dark ride entrance, Wildwood, New Jersey. New Jersey United States Wildwood, 1978. Photograph.

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.

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