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Sarah Anthes

Professor Hackett

English 1100; Sec. 018

November 2, 2005

Opera Verdi Europa: Macbeth

As the lights went down and the curtains rose, the beautiful Italian singing voices

and phenomenal orchestra overpowered the audience. In the opening act, on October 20,

2005, the actors of Bulgaria’s Opera Verdi Europa gave a sample of the drama that was

going to arise in the next three acts of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth. Even though the opera

was in Italian, the music, setting, and color symbolism of the Macbeth’s plot made the

performance enjoyable and more comprehendible for the audience.

Giuseppe Verdi’s adapted version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth first premiered in

Florence, Italy in 1847. After it debuted, Macbeth became one of Verdi’s greatest works.

The opera is “everything a modern audience could wish for: revenge, betrayal, murder,

and madness” (Graham). The opera’s drama comes from Shakespeare’s tragedy of

Macbeth. Macbeth’s madness begins with the killing of the king and it escalades with

every other murder he commits. Eventually he becomes a machine and his own

heartlessness kills him in the end.

Ivan Kyurkchiev, the artistic director of Macbeth, founded Opera Verdi Europa in

1996. The company is one of the top “operatic companies” (“Something Wicked This

Way Comes” 1) in Bulgaria. The members of the company rank with the best Bulgarian

musicians, singers, and dancers (Graham). Opera Verdi Europa has a unique style to

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their performances. They combine the Bulgarian opera style and the European opera

style to create a “multicultural experience” (Scene) for their audience.

The setting of Macbeth was very simple. It consisted of a grey moving circle, a

bed, a dagger, tree branches, and swords. The reason there were minimal props and no

backdrops was that the performance was in the Wright Auditorium. The stage in the

Wright Auditorium is not “equipped to hang backdrops” (Woodruff) and “it does not

have the space to set up any of the large set pieces” (Woodruff). Opera Verdi Europa had

to reduce their set considerably to perform in the Wright Auditorium. Even without the

additional props, the company was able to create an eerie atmosphere with their use of

lighting and the color grey.

Red and grey were the two symbolic colors used throughout Macbeth. Grey

clothes, red blood, silver-grey swords, and red gloves conveyed the sadness and death in

the opera. Innocent people wearing grey are mourning over the loss of loved ones. The

man wearing red, Macbeth, is guilty for killing the king and many other admired people.

Lady Macbeth also wore red because she helped her husband murder the king. There is a

correlation between the color red and the number of deaths in the opera because the color

red appears more as Macbeth kills more people.

Music has the ability to enhance a performance or destroy a performance. The

orchestra and opera singers of Opera Verdi Europa did a fantastic job of enhancing

Macbeth. Verdi created the “orchestration and vocal writings” (“Something Wicked This

Way Comes” 1) to ensure that the audience felt the”suspense and terror” (“Something

Wicked This Way Comes” 1) throughout the opera. Loud noises from the orchestra or a

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piercing vocal note made the audience jump in fear of Macbeth’s next move. It is

said, “Verdi needed singing actors rather than acting singers,” (“Something Wicked This

Way Comes” 5) meaning that the singers needed to be passionate about what they were

singing. When Verdi wrote the music for this opera, he did not want “beautiful singing”

(“Something Wicked This Way Comes” 5) throughout the entire opera. He wanted the

audience to be able to tell the emotion the singers were feeling through their voices. The

opera singers in Macbeth were able to sing with the passion and emotion needed to keep

the audience’s attention. Verdi noted that he wanted there to be something devilish in

Lady Macbeth’s voice (“Something Wicked This Way Comes” 5) because he wanted the

audience to portray her as a cool, heartless woman. Naboru Aomori, Lady Macbeth, was

able to sing with such cruelty and turn her audience against her.

Bojidar Bonev and Nayden Todorov conducted Orchestra Verdi Europa. The

orchestra is very popular and known all over the world. Orchestra Verdi Europa has

good relationships with “some of the premiere opera houses in central Europe” (Mason),

allowing world-renowned singers and conductors from Europe to be a part of the

Bulgarian Orchestra Verdi Europa. It is not a surprise that this world-known orchestra

was incredible when they performed. The orchestra was always on beat and never

missed a note. The energy behind the orchestra kept the audience on the edge of their

seats.

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The entire opera was in Italian because Verdi was an “Italian composer and all of

his operas were written in Italian” (Woodruff). There were superscripts in English that

allowed the audience to understand the words of the opera. The eyes of the audience

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were in constant motion because they were trying to focus on the performance and the

superscripts. It was easy to get lost because of the language barrier. If a spectator did not

know the plot of Macbeth before they entered the Wright Auditorium, then most likely

they were not able to take in the famous opera being preformed. It can be very difficult

for young people to appreciate Verdi’s fine piece of work because it is in Italian.

Gisuppe Verdi’s Macbeth is a phenomenal opera. The Italian language did not

stop people from enjoying Opera Verdi Europa’s performance. Many people left the

auditorium speaking highly of the opera. It was with the help of the music, setting, and

costumes that Opera Verdi Europa’s Macbeth was such a success at East Carolina

University.

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Work Cited

Graham, Peggy. “Opera Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’ proves Bewitching.”

Web page. 2005. 25 Oct. 2005

<Http://www.jccc.net/home/depts/003100/site/press_main/

events_by_month/operaverdimacbeth>.

Opera Verdi Europa: Macbeth. East Carolina University, 2005.

Scene, Observer. “Opera Verdi Europa coming to Morris.” Web page. 2005.

25 Oct. 2005 <http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/media.com/media/

Paper660/news/2005/04/04/Scene/Opera.Verdi.Europa

.Coming. To.Morris-911252.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain

=www.ndsmcobserver.com\

“Something Wicked This Way Comes.” The S. Rudolph Alexander

Performing Arts Series 28 Oct. 2005: 1&5.

Woodruff, Carol. Email interview. 1 Nov. 2005.

Sarah,

Well-written essay with good research.

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Grade: A