Monday, October 22, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
Adrian Noble, known for his stint as the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, is pulling a Steven Spielberg.It certainly felt like he was making a war movie as he directed the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Giuseppe Verdi's "Macbeth."
In Noble's updated Met production, set in the post-World War II era, there are 80-plus members of the chorus onstage, almost 30 supernumeraries, about 15 dancers, and even a group of children.
Now that's an army, even before you bring in the principal singers.
Reining in that many people for one cohesive show is hard work for any director, let alone a lifelong theater director who has just a handful of opera and musical directing experiences. But Noble says that the large cast is essential, especially in this Shakespeare story.
Take the witches of "toil and trouble" fame. "In the Shakespeare play, there are just three of them," said Noble. "But obviously that doesn't work as a chorus, so Verdi had to adapt it."
FAST FACTS
What: "Macbeth."
When: 8 tonight, Friday, Oct. 31, Nov. 3, Jan. 5, 9 and 15, and May 9, 13 and 17; 1:30 p.m. Jan. 12.
Where: The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, Manhattan. 212-362-6000 or metoperafamily.org.
How much: $15 to $295.
The opera calls for 40 witches to sing in chorus, which can be "very odd," said Noble, considering they appear out of nowhere on Macbeth's journey home. Noble plays on the original Shakespeare script by having three witches confront the Scot at first, with the host of ghastly witches rising out of the murk after Macbeth asks them for a prophecy.
Verdi "gives this an epic dimension," said Noble. "The chorus gives it a weight and a power and a dynamic."
But strength in numbers doesn't just up the ante in the realm of the supernatural. It also adds a touch of realism to the refugee scene, said Noble.
This scene is forgettable in the original 17th century Shakespeare text, but becomes crucial in Verdi's 19th century opera. Mass refugee situations "hadn't happened in Shakespeare's time," said Noble. "But it was starting to happen in Verdi's time. And now it's happening all over the world. But especially since the Second World War -- that's really where it all started."
Is it a stretch to put the feudal Scottish general in the post-colonial 20th century? Not at all, says Noble. The resonances are in the framework of the original story.
"There is a general of an army who is hugely successful and hugely popular," said Noble. "Then there is sort of a shift in power, and he takes over for the monarch, the king. At first he is highly loved. Then as the years go by, he slowly turns into a tyrant."
That situation has repeated itself over and over worldwide, explained Noble. Just as Verdi has the people of Scotland escaping to England in the refugee scene, millions of people escaped the former Yugoslavia, Cuba, and even the Sudan in recent history.
"I thought, God, that's so contemporary," said Noble. "Across the world now, there are millions of people who have been displaced."
Case in point may be lead baritone Zeljko Lucic, born in the former Yugoslavia and -- ironically -- the singer who plays Macbeth. "Now I am expressing myself as a Serbian," said Lucic. "There were a lot of refugee camps in my former country."
Although he is famous for his Verdi repertoire -- "Papa Verdi" to him -- and generally prefers more traditional staging, Lucic says that Noble's interpretation "fits."
He particularly enjoys facing off with the witches in the third act "mad scene" aria "Fuggi regal fantasima." And after the refugee scene in the fourth act, Lucic swoops in with one of the most powerful arias of the opera, "Pietà, rispetto, amore."
The best quality in Noble's directing was his respect for the music, Lucic added. "You come to the opera to hear singing, not to see how I am dressed," he explained.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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