Review: Out Damned Spot—But Hello to Teatro Nuovo’s Unusual MACBETH!

I must admit that I was a little disappointed when I read that this season’s offerings from Will Crutchfield’s Teatro Nuovo featured a couple of familiar titles: Verdi’s MACBETH and Bellini’s LA SONNAMBULA, particularly the former, which one doesn’t think of in the domain of bel canto, the group’s specialty.

Like so many others, I’ve become used to Crutchfield coming up with some true rarities, like last year’s fine ANNA DI RESBURGO by Carolina Uccelli and the Riccis’ richly comic CRISPINO E LA COMARE the year before, alongside less familiar works by Donizetti (POLIUTO) and Bellini (I CAPULETTI E I MONTECCHI). I needn’t have worried about the raison d'etre for the company to be doing the operatic version of the Shakespeare play. This performance made it clearer than usual why Verdi said that “this MACBETH…I love in preference to my other operas.”

With the fine musicians of the Teatro Nuovo Chorus and Orchestra, under Jakob Lehmann, the Maestro Concertore e Direttore, the performance of MACBETH at New York’s City Center featured period instruments and combined elements of two different versions (1847 and 1865) of Verdi's opera, often showcasing the ensemble’s winds to great effect. The earlier version, certainly, skirted the bel canto era and its lighter sound, though there was also no mistaking the voice of the mature Verdi in some of the arias.

While the opera doesn’t show up at the Met very often, it’s usually when there’s someone spectacular in the cast, like Netrebko, who was Lady Macbeth the last time I heard it in New York in 2014. Frequently, in fact, it becomes the Lady’s opera, famous for its mad scene. Not this time around, however, despite the strong performance of soprano Alexandra Loutsion as the female lead, who was at her best in the sleepwalking aria.

In this iteration, the star was certainly baritone Ricardo Jose Rivera--a powerful Macbeth from start to finish, never letting us forget for a moment why the opera is named for his character. He commanded the stage whenever he was given the chance. It was an impressive portrayal.

That said, it’s somewhat obvious that Verdi never saw the original play performed, from some of the cutting of the drama we know, which had never been done in Italy by the time of his writing. There were translations of it, however, that he used, with his librettist Francesco Maria Piave (who would also write the libretti for numerous other Verdi scores, including RIGOLETTO and LA TRAVIATA), though I don’t know how faithful they were to the original.

The cast featured a couple of other standouts. Bass Cumhur Gorgun was an outstanding Banco (Shakespeare’s Banquo) and tenor Martin Luther Clark was a notable Macduff, even if he had to wait for a very long time for his starry aria, “La paterna mia” (which made me sorry he didn’t have more to do), where he voices his regrets for the sorry state of Scotland under the Macbeths (a familiar cry for many of us these days).

The chorus, under Derrick Goff, was fine filling a variety of functions—witches, messengers, nobles, among others—though their work also pointed out how this version of the story doesn’t have the play’s standout set piece, “Double, double, toil and trouble” for a trio of hags.

So, it’s time for another “Bravo!” for Crutchfield and his Teatro Nuovo—who stood their own in a week when there was plenty of real drama in our world of opera, from the shakeup in the Times’s critical arts staffing to the fawning done over the possible renaming of Kennedy Center’s opera house.

Caption: Ricardo Jose Rivera as Macbeth; Alexandra Loutsion as Lady Macbeth

Photo: Steven Pisano