Evaluation: Macbeth a becoming and superb finish to Calgary Opera's fiftieth anniversary season

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Because the capstone to their celebratory fiftieth anniversary season, Calgary Opera is at present presenting Verdi’s Macbeth. Opening to a full home, with a standing ovation at its conclusion, this superb manufacturing is a becoming testomony to how a lot the corporate has developed prior to now half-century.

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That is the primary time the corporate has offered Verdi’s difficult, sometimes carried out operatic setting of Shakespeare’s well-known play, a efficiency that, the lead singers apart, is essentially a home-grown affair. The spectacular, well-designed set and costumes have been created in Calgary by the corporate’s manufacturing employees, headed by Scot Reid because the principal designer. The set, spacious and grand, is suitable to the setting of the opera in medieval Scotland and successfully evokes the darkish environment of the time and the context of the storyline. The costumes, additionally of the interval, embody some outstanding costumes for the refrain of witches, a central aspect within the plot.

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This supernatural aspect, essential to the moody environment, is supported by some outstanding feats of contemporary projection know-how. That is particularly evident within the third act, set in a big, rocky cave, full with an enormous witches’ cauldron – one which (on cue) merely and magically disappears. In the identical act, there’s a visually arresting parade of ghostly apparitions when Macbeth, with assistance from the witches, sees each the long run and the previous. All these visible parts mix to create the sense of an idea, one that’s well-executed and imaginative.

The stage route is by the award-winning director Rachel Peake, who has labored extensively in Vancouver and Edmonton in each theatre and opera. Clearly at residence on this planet of opera, Peake treats the motion in a pure approach and avoids any sense of static or the overly fussy. This can be a actual accomplishment, because the opera rooted within the stop-and-start mode of early Verdi, can simply lend itself to a stand-and-deliver type of presentation.

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This isn’t the case right here, for the motion flows effectively, with simply sufficient touches of “enterprise” to underline a way of dramatic motivation. This sense of dramatic immediacy is current not simply within the witches’ scenes but in addition within the battle and banquet scenes that contain the refrain.

Though the motion focuses, naturally, upon Macbeth and Woman Macbeth, the refrain has a really giant function to play. They’re troopers, friends on the banquet, and witches – even assassins and kids. These totally different roles are moulded into the bigger motion, coming right into a central focus within the finale sections of the 2 halves of the opera. Right here one is ready to hear the total sound of the refrain in its dramatic engagement with the principal singers, the prolonged banquet scene being significantly dramatic and spectacular. A very shifting second comes within the outstanding refrain for the downtrodden Scottish residents in the beginning of the ultimate act. Fantastically sung and acted, this was a excessive second in a manufacturing with many strengths. As on earlier events, there was additionally superb contribution from the Cantaré Youngsters’s Choir.

The 2 lead roles are notoriously troublesome to sing and require singers with highly effective voices, stamina, and the power to sing in each a dramatic and lyrical method. All these parts have been current within the singing of the 2 lead roles, baritone Giuseppe Altomare and soprano Vittoria Yeo. With its want for a steely sound and sensible prime register, but in addition backside notes, Woman Macbeth is a job that few sopranos are prepared to deal with, not to mention capable of grasp. One in every of them is Yeo, whose voice was completely suited to this demanding function. As spectacular as her dramatic singing was – and it was spectacular – it was nonetheless her sleep-walking scene within the remaining act that was her most compelling second, one very strongly applauded. Woman Macbeth is a fancy character to current efficiently on stage since she should be the woman who says “Give me the daggers,” in addition to the spouse who smooths over her husband’s hallucinations within the banquet scene. And right here, totally different from different elements of the opera, she has to sing fast music of froth and allure. However Yeo was equal to all of it, and with a voice as lovely because it was effectively carrying.

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Macbeth has essentially the most to sing within the opera and should sing music that’s troublesome, advanced, and (for a lot of baritones) uncomfortably excessive. However these difficulties disappeared within the superb efficiency of the title function by Giuseppe Altomare. His expertise with the function was evident within the full integration of the vocal and dramatic parts, an particularly highly effective second being the aria within the remaining act (retained from the unique model of the opera) simply earlier than the ultimate battle scene. Altomare’s sterling efficiency is a central power of the manufacturing as an entire.

What’s an Italian opera with out a tenor? On this manufacturing, the tenor is Macduff, a job sung by Canadian tenor Andrew Haji, heard beforehand in Calgary in Bellini’s Norma. Though he has a robust voice, it was the sweeter aspect of Haji’s singing that was on show in his lovely fourth-act aria, a memorable second within the manufacturing, gaining him a really constructive viewers response on the remaining curtain.

On the different finish of the male vocal spectrum, Robert Pomakov gave a shifting account of his second-act aria, the place he anticipates his personal homicide. The secondary roles, which prominently included members from the McPhee Artist Growth Program, have been dealt with with professionalism and blended effectively with the remainder of the solid.

Jonathan Brandini, the corporate’s inventive director was the conductor, main the Calgary Philharmonic to certainly one of its finest operatic performances. This can be a new rating for the orchestra, and it’s a testomony to Brandini’s safe management that the tempi have been effectively judged, together with each the jaunty and deeper parts of the rating. Underneath Brandini’s management, the orchestra performed very cleanly and with a robust sense of musical character. A way of safety in all of the musical parts was palpable, from the crisply performed overture to the thunderous conclusion on the finish of the opera.

General, the manufacturing is visually arresting, as is the singing of the soloists and refrain. The particular results work easily and combine effectively with the extra conventional parts of the manufacturing. This can be a becoming and worthy climax to the half-century of manufacturing the corporate has given to the Calgary public. With this manufacturing of Macbeth, that includes a lot native expertise, one can expertise one of the best the corporate provides. Additional performances shall be given on Wednesday, April 26 and Friday, April 28. For anybody who likes opera with thrills and chills, it isn’t to be missed.