Macbeth

Composer: VERDI, Giuseppe
  • Macbeth is a four-act opera with libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Andrea Maffei based on the Shakespeare play. Verdi was known to have been a great admirer of The Bard. The opera premiered in Florence in 1847 with the composer conducting.
  • For the Paris premiere in 1865, the opera was heavily revised, translated into French, and a ballet was added to the third act.
    • The Paris revision is most commonly performed today (though in Italian).
  • Musicologists consider Macbeth to be a watershed moment for Verdi’s evolution as a composer. The opera marks the break in tradition from opera as a series of arias. Instead, Macbeth marks the beginning of Verdi’s “continuous flow” operas, or unbroken music dramas from beginning to end.1 

Opera Synopsis

For fun – the curse of “the Scottish Play”

Sources

  1. Roger Parker, “Verdi, Giuseppe,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 23, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000029191.

Cut IDs

48480 49388 14395 14396 19086 16435