VERDI AND SHAKESPEARE
Over 200 operas have been based on the plays of Shakespeare. The reasons for this are not hard to identify: there are dramatic plots, vivid characters, and unsurpassed beauties of language to inspire the composer. On the other hand, the reason why so few of these operas have stood the test of time is also really quite simple: Shakespeare’s genius is generally too profound, too subtle, to translate effectively to the operatic stage. Give yourself a quick-fire quiz – how many operas based on Shakespeare’s plays can you name? I think even the better informed would struggle to identify more than ten, perhaps opera buffs might be able to come up with twenty but would then have to resort to reference works. Max Bruch’s ‘Hermione’ anyone? This opera, based on ‘The Winter’s Tale’ was certainly a new one on me when I started my research for this article. ‘Macbeth’ in versions by Ernest Bloch (very occasionally performed) and Lawrance Collingwood (performed a handful of times when first written but now sunk without trace) are two examples of high-profile musicians who have failed to trouble posterity unduly with their Shakespearian adaptations. Even those operas known to aficionados: Ambrose Thomas’ ‘Hamlet’, Berlioz’ ‘Beatrice and Benedict’, Bellini’s ‘I Capuletti et Montecchi’, Gounod’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Vaughan Williams ‘Sir John in Love’ and Samuel Barber’s ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’, to name the Shakespeare operas that occur to me without too much of an effort, are hardly firmly established repertoire pieces. No, the only composers to place Shakespeare firmly in the general opera goer’s consciousness are Benjamin Britten with ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and, far more emphatically, Giuseppe Verdi with ‘Macbeth’, ‘Otello’ and ‘Falstaff’. Let us consider these three in some detail.
Verdi adored Shakespeare and read his works in Italian and English. He famously laboured for years to compose a ‘King Lear’ but failed. At least one ‘Lear’ opera has been written, by Aribert Reimann, and this received a successful premiere in 1978 with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau no less, in the title role, and was performed in several high-profile productions in subsequent years. Despite the very real qualities of this opera, I don’t think it can be said to have established itself with any security in the repertoire, although it is certainly worth listening to (there are two recordings). ‘Lear’ has several elements that lend themselves well to operatic treatment: the storm on the heath, of course, Edgar as ‘Mad Tom’, the blinding of Gloucester, and Cordelia’s death (c.f. Gilda’s death in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’). ‘Hamlet’ is far less obviously operatic, and this is presumably why, as far as I am aware, Verdi showed no interest in making an opera from it. The scenes with the ghost of Hamlet’s father might be operatically effective but these are followed by a good number of introspective moments where our hero talks the talk but fails to walk the walk, (magnificent of course but short on incident). There are, to be fair, other more dramatic scenes, Polonius is killed, there is the play (‘The Mousetrap’!) within the play, Ophelia is drowned and Hamlet duels with Laertes, but this is essentially a play of ideas, and you need a Wagner to do that sort of thing justice, and, since you ask, yes, he did write a Shakespeare themed opera: ‘Das Liebesverbot’ based on ‘Measure for Measure’ – a bold choice, and not for what he is remembered. Despite not being the obvious operatic subject ‘Hamlet’ has inspired at least five operas, the most recent, by Brett Dean, having been frequently performed in Europe and the USA over the last few years. Will this become established in the repertoire? Only time will tell…
‘Macbeth’ was Verdi’s first Shakespeare opera. His tenth opera, it premiered in 1847. Written between ‘Rigoletto’ and ‘Stiffelio’ it shows Verdi developing his mature style, where he becomes less concerned with individual musical numbers and more interested in developing a dramatic atmosphere, although he is not yet attempting the ‘through-composition’ we see in ‘Otello’ and ‘Falstaff’.
If ‘Hamlet’ is less than ideal operatic material because of the hero’s passive, introspective and complex character, ‘Macbeth’ makes obvious operatic sense. We have a hero who is very much a man of action, a brave, brutal warrior but also, to begin with at least, a loyal husband, friend and subject, whom, as he says himself wins ‘golden opinions from all sorts of people.’ In addition, when his resolution fails, he has a formidable wife who goads him to embark on his bloody campaign to attain the throne of Scotland. If we add to this two noble comrades who rapidly become inconveniences, a confrontation with a ghost, Lady Macbeth sleep-walking, and, crucially three witches, along with other supernatural paraphernalia, then most bases for high operatic drama seem to be covered. Despite this, Verdi is the only composer attempting an adaptation of ‘Macbeth’ who really pulls it off – this is a superb opera, not as profound as his other Shakespeare inspired works, but rip-roaring entertainment, with moments of sublime dramatic genius, and profound pathos.
At this stage of his career, Verdi was helped by Macbeth’s relatively straightforward nature. The warrior thane is brave and very good at fighting – he also seems to be a loving husband and good friend; King Duncan values him highly. Of course, he has a guilty secret, his ambition to be King of Scotland, and this is exploited by the witches and his wife, but in terms of complexity, there is far more to say about Lady M, a fact Verdi recognizes by giving her a couple of virtuosic, show-stopping arias. Macbeth’s music, though impressive, never achieves this level of visceral excitement. Lady M’s complexity is also revealed by her emotional and mental unravelling as the body count against her husband mounts up. She kills no one herself – unable to murder King Duncan because ‘he resembled my father as he slept’ and though she manipulates her husband in the most extreme terms, claiming she would have smashed out the brains of a beloved baby even while it was suckling at her breast if she had sworn to kill as Macbeth had done, the bloody deeds are Macbeth’s alone, or those of the murderers he hires. Interestingly, after the confrontation with Banquo’s ghost Macbeth becomes far more ‘bloody, bold, and resolute’ whereas his wife displays the dreadful effects of guilt in her sleep-walking scene. She washes her hands continuously of course (an ironic echo of her blasé assurance to Macbeth after he has killed Duncan, ‘a little water clears us of this deed…’), but she also focusses on the murder of Lady Macduff and her children, ‘the thane of Fife had a wife’, one woman’s sympathy for another. She called on the ‘spirits who tend on mortal thoughts’ to ‘unsex me here’) – they failed to do so.
Macbeth is not entirely free of introspection. When told his wife is dead, he gives the ultimate nihilistic response:
She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Verdi and his librettist Piave rather gloss over this:
Life... what does it matter? It is the tale of a poor fool: wind and sound signifying nothing.
They invest far more emotion in Macbeth’s great aria ‘Pieta, rispetto, amore’, which romanticises or even sentimentalises his character:
Mercy, respect, love, the comfort of declining years, these will place no flowers on your old age. Nor should you hope for kind words on your royal tomb: only curses, alas, will be your funeral hymn.
Verdi’s later Shakespeare operas are more faithful to the original, but ‘Macbetto’ is still a work of genius. In addition to the Macbeths’ superb music, we have fine arias for Banquo and Macduff (the latter fleshing out the character of Macbeth’s nemesis), a gravely beautiful and poignant chorus of Scottish refugees, and an upbeat, even jaunty, final chorus:
Where is the usurper? The God of victory struck him down.
Finally, and worthy of special mention, we have the witches. Rather more than three in a full-scale production, their music gives the female chorus a wonderful opportunity to have a high old time with music that might be best described as rollocking. There is no attempt, as in Justin Kurzel’s film version with Michael Fassbender as Macbeth, to make the witches sinister and otherworldly, in Verdi’s opera they are more like bonkers pensioners causing mayhem down at the social club; and very splendid they are too!!
My thoughts on ‘Othello/Otello’ and ‘Falstaff’ follow shortly. Before these, I am investigating Eric Cantona the singer, for what I hope will be some light relief…
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