Hamburg State Opera’s New Production of Verdi’s Macbeth Plays Mind Games

Verdi knew what he was talking about. Writing to his librettist Francesco Piave about Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play”, he declared: “This tragedy is one of the greatest creations of Man. If we can’t make something great out of it, let us at least try to do something out of the ordinary.” Verdi’s opera is indeed far from the ordinary. It marks a huge step forward in mid-19th century Italian opera. For the first time, there is considerable psychological depth, a tinta that remains shadowy throughout, with a preponderance of music in the minor mode, and it is devoid of any love-affair, a “L’opera senza amore”, as Italians declared at the time. There are three main protagonists in this, Verdi’s tenth opera: the hero of sorts in the title, his wife, whom the composer usually referred to simply as “Lady”, and the witches, more than the three “weird sisters” in Shakespeare’s original, and in this production more than the number traditionally associated with a coven. There are no showstopping arias either. Rather, it is the orchestra that has a proactive part in what unfolds. Tobias Kratzer, Hamburg’s Intendant and here directing the proceedings, has had a tendency of late to place the emphasis on what is going on in the minds of his operatic characters, often at a much deeper level, implying that interior action matters more than anything overt and visible on stage. He and his lighting director Michael Bauer certainly delivered on the shadows: the stage was shrouded in semi-darkness almost from start to finish, with an occasional lifting of the gloom but with nothing by way of dramatic contrasts. For instance, at the beginning of Act 2, when she sings her “La luce langue” aria, Lady Macbeth’s reference to the fading light would have been heightened had there been a palpable reduction in the lighting. As it is, she was required to use a torch later in her sleepwalking scene, and both Macbeth and Banco on their first appearances move around the stage with flashlights. Kratzer’s intention in representing the witches was to hark back to antiquity and the role of the Greek chorus in acting as a commentary on the action. To this end he and his set designer Rainer Sellmaier had created something very minimalistic, with the stage looking like the half-moon of an amphitheatre, dominated by tiers of seating, mostly hidden away, from which the chorus acted out their various roles. For the most part they were kitted out in black overgarments, some of whom then revealed festive attire when appearing as guests for Macbeth’s Act 2 banquet. Everybody else was in modern-day dress, Macbeth and Banco wearing parkas for their outdoor scenes, for instance. The direction of this very large chorus was mostly effective: they were never static when seated, nodding or moving their heads from left to right, stretching their arms upwards, moving like waves from one level in the tiers to the next, creeping and then crouching in clusters. Yet one waited in vain for expressions of the supernatural: there was no thunder and no flashes of lighting, no suggestion of earthly power being countermanded by divine forces. What happened was located entirely on Planet Earth. Kratzer rejects the view that the absence of children in the Macbeth marriage lowers the barrier for evil and immoral activity in a woman, calling this a form of misogyny, and so in this production Macbeth has a young son, thus highlighting the question of dynastic succession. In Macbeth’s castle, reduced to its basic domestic elements, father and son play with a toy car while seated on a carpet until the Thane of Cawdor places a crown, fashioned from a paper cut-out on his son’s head. Later, the sons of both Macbeth and Banco play together. Happy families? Far from it. I remain unpersuaded that there was a coherent approach to the relationship between Macbeth and his wife. Seemingly fractious in the earlier scenes, there was no overriding sense of a folie à deux at work, each impelling the other to greater deeds of beastliness, and nothing approaching a descent into real madness. There were occasional instances of togetherness but nothing approaching an unholy bond, and I found the brief episode in Act 4 where Macbeth falls upon his wife followed by simulated intercourse clumsy and unnecessary. The level at which this opera must work is simple to define: unrestrained ambition directed towards the acquisition of power, with all barriers of restraint torn down, and the presence of evil in the engine-room at all times. One can be prompted to feel horror and revulsion by virtue of the text alone, but there has to be some physical representation as well. Playing mind games only takes you so far. The act of Duncan’s killing was almost risible. Played here as an old man with a stick, he lies down on a mattress placed on the floor, only to have a dagger thrust once into his side before expiring. We are miles away from what Hitchcock did in Psycho. Here, there is no blood on either the hands of the assassin or his wife, making a mockery of her later torment which culminates in her cry of “Out, damned spot”. There is no wringing or washing of hands to suggest physical disgust at the deed that has been done. Clasping one’s head or cupping one’s eyes is too little. It’s all in the mind, folks. That said, Kratzer clearly has a fascination with corpses: Duncan’s lies on the floor of the stage long after his murder, the bodies of Macduff’s wife and children indicate what has happened to them, Lady Macbeth’s suicide resembles no more than a sudden seizure, with a copycat follow-up from members of the chorus, and towards the very end Macduff shoots Macbeth dead with a pistol, and then strangles his son. These individual acts should all induce a feeling of horror, but they seem to represent little more than the ticking-off on a to-do list. Scene changes were badly handled. A bead of glaring LED lights strung across the stage temporarily blinded the audience to what was being done on stage, and there were far too many such instances. Verdi’s 1865 revision for the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris included a ballet sequence of some ten minutes inserted to satisfy French tastes at the time. This was missing here, as was any attempt at dancing. However, a further addition at the close of the opera with the cries of “Vittoria! Vittoria!” from the chorus of soldiers, Scottish refugees and the common people, was very effective, helped by the clear focus, sharp attack and rounded body of tone from the Hamburg State Opera Chorus, finely coached by Alice Meregaglia. Their singing was often highly idiomatic, not least in their other great set-piece in Act 4 of “Patria oppressa”. Tomáš Hanus, Music Director of Welsh National Opera, was a sure-footed guide through the score, delivering highly charged atmosphere for the opening Prelude and being fully alive to Italianitàelsewhere. I especially liked his range of dynamics, often drawing velvety-soft and hushed sounds from his strings and imposing martial tones from his brass players. Apart from occasional imprecision, the orchestra played splendidly. Without great singers no opera can really compel. Sad to report, this was not an ideal cast. Verdi specified that he wanted to have “a harsh, stifled (cupo), dark timbre for the role of Lady Macbeth, “the voice of the devil”, as he put it. The Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze had an overly bright voice with some degrees of sharpness, not unwelcome in this character. She coped very well with the demands of the tessitura which included coloratura runs, wild leaps and a considerable expressive range. What she didn’t have was a well-developed chest register, those smoky tones which conjure up the mysteries of darkness, and a chilling cutting edge to the top line which needed to induce fear at the thought of what she might do next. She may well have been held back from exploring the dramatic opportunities which Verdi gives this singer by a director who believed much should be left to the imagination. However, her key aria in Act 4, “Una macchia è qui tuttora”, where she relives the trail of utter wickedness that she has left behind, opened up her innermost being. I also had my doubts about the Macbeth of Kartal Karagedik. His warm, vibrant voice, almost tender at times, was somewhat at variance with the hard-headed opportunist who sees his chance of grasping the crown. Far too nice to do something like that, I kept thinking. He was very secure in the lower reaches and found an appropriate blackness of tone for his Act 2 encounter with the ghost of Banco, here played by the character himself on stage. In contrast, I missed the true sound of a Verdian basso cantante in Alexander Vinogradov’s singing of Banco. In fact, there were moments when Macbeth and Banco sounded almost interchangeable, so close in timbre were they together. There were no shortcomings in any of the minor roles, the tenor voice of Dovlet Nurgeldiyev as Macduff standing out for his only aria of note, the “Ah, la paterna mano” at the start of the final act. It is surely too much to expect every new production of Macbeth to get everything right. Shakespeare did, of course, and Verdi in his operatic versions came very close to replicating that achievement. Modern directors often cannot withstand the urge to tamper, as was the case here, and if they have bees in their bonnet about what they consider appropriate and valid for today’s audiences, they end up smudging the ink on a perfectly conceived original idea. Overall coherence is what I look for and indeed expect, but sadly not present here. I suspect that in twenty years’ time, were Kratzer to stage this opera again, he would almost certainly have a very different take on the darkness in human nature. Alexander Hall Macbeth (1865 revision) Opera in four acts to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, with additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare’s drama Music by Giuseppe Verdi Sung in Italian with surtitles in German and English Cast and Production Staff: Macbeth – Kartal Karagedik; Banco – Alexander Vinogradov; Lady Macbeth – Nino Machaidze; Macduff – Dovlet Nurgeldiyev; Malcolm – Colin Aikins; Lady Macbeth’s lady-in-waiting – Mariana Poltorak; Doctor – Chao Deng; Macbeth’s Servant/Assassin – Ferdinand Muradyan; Three Apparitions – Ferdinand Muradyan, Mariana Poltorak, Inés López Fernández; Chorus of Hamburg State Opera, Chorus-Master, Alice Meregaglia; Orchestra of Hamburg State Opera, Conductor Tomáš Hanus Director – Tobias Kratzer; Sets and Costumes – Rainer Sellmaier; Lighting – Michael Bauer; Dramaturgy – Laura Schmidt Hamburg State Opera, 12 September 2026 Further performances until 20 October Top image: Kartal Karagedik as Macbeth All Photos © Monika Rittershaus