Overview - Macbeth

Overview

Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.

Cast

• Name: Leo Nucci

  Character: Macbeth

  Popularity: 0.4864

  

• Name: Shirley Verrett

  Character: Lady Macbeth

  Popularity: 0.477

  

• Name: Samuel Ramey

  Character: Banquo

  Popularity: 0.7606

  

• Name: Anna Caterina Antonacci

  Character: Dama de Lady Macbeth

  Popularity: 0.7673

  

• Name: Veriano Luchetti

  Character: Macduff

  Popularity: 0.7105

  

• Name: Antonio Barasorda

  Character: Malcolm

  Popularity: 0.3019

  

• Name: Sergio Fontana

  Character: Mendico

  Popularity: 0.4856

  

• Name: Nicolas Sansier

  Character: Fleanzio

  Popularity: 0.5551