We are in Autumn now,my favourite season, and one of the reasons is because it is the beginning of the 'New York Metropolitan Opera live on film' season. This means that lucky Opera Buffs like me can attend the Metropolitan Opera via cinema even in Victoria. This year the season was opened with the opera Macbeth by Verdi .You will have to bear with me dear readers as I once more enthuse in my blogg about my favourite art form. As we all know, Macbeth is a Shakespeare play full of blood and gore and known for it's superstitious reputation [it is inadvisable to quote "Macbeth" in the theatre]. The story is all about the ambitious ruthless Macbeth who wants to become king and goes around full kilted swirling a fur cloak and swinging a huge Claymore sword. Not in this opera! Here Macbeth is placed in the early 1950's era-looked more like an unsuccessful drug lord in a long swishy leather coat, bullet belts draped around his middle and carrying an insignificant rifle. The fact that he had a strong bass voice, was sturdy and came from Malta, saved him from mediocrity. Lady Macbeth ,on the other hand was entirely something else. When she arrived on stage I gasped and so did most of the audience. She is all about seduction and I have seen several versions in plays where the Lady attempts to be so-usually hampered by unwieldy medieval Scottish attire. But not this Lady Macbeth! This Lady Macbeth was a Russian blond haired beauty-a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Veronica lake. She was attired-almost- in a slip of revealing negligee and as she writhed on the matrimonial bed singing seductively about her ambitious plans of mayhem and murder,she flashed a surprising amount of lovely long leg while twining them around poor Macbeth. I think we have to doff our opera hats to Maria Callas at this point who introduced the sexy siren as opera singer to the world. She even looked sexier when she stripped off the negligee and put on a stunning satin black satin tuxedo that could only have been tailored by Armani. With her long blond hair draped over her eyes and her six inch heels,she even looked sexy with her arms covered in blood as she came out of the bed chamber of the dead kin wielding the bloody knife and singing "who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him" in Italian with her lovely Russian soprano voice. She even looked good in a soiled nightgown as she sleep-walked crazily and tried to wash her hands-"Out damn spot"she sang in Italian-What fun Opera is!
The other part I enjoyed immensely were the witches. Usually these are depicted as three old crones, revolting in appearance as they circle around the cauldron tossing in snakes eyes and toad tongues, but not this time. This time we had at least thirty witches all dressed in fifties' era dresses looking all the world like middle aged housewives from Glasgow with "Queen Mother" hats and purses which they swung at poor Macbeth as they intoned their false promises of success in beautiful harmony-the music in Macbeth is surprisingly beautiful and Verdi wrote it mostly in "Belle Canto." I am sure you all know this means melodious singing. I don't know how the choreographer did it but these' fifties' housewives managed to be frighteningly grotesque and at one time I had to shut my eyes as they-along with their child witches- did their dastardly deeds. As you can see, I had a howlingly great and vulgar good time at the opera. There is no doubt that in the world of Art and Culture, Opera is the most vulgar but oh-so beautiful art form.
