Hold on to your hats, because this was something. The great, the only Anna Netrebko, Her Trebness, sang Lady Macbeth at the Royal Opera House, and it was everything you can imagine, and more. I heard her in Traviata at La Scala a year ago; her voice here was very different. The high notes are still there, strong, powerful, not held for a long time though, and that’s what made me think that maybe they are not so secure as they used to be. The coloratura is not as fast: she was a tad slow in the first roulade, and did better as the evening progressed. It could be that learning such a “low” role has somehow changed the balance of her voice, it could be that her fast and furious coloratura is lost forever, who knows. And who cares. The voice is unbelievable. The central/low register is smooth, with colors of caramel, honey and chocolate, deep, natural, and perfectly connected to the upper register, shining with brilliance. The haters who say that she has two voices don’t know what they’re talking about. The sheer size of her voice is impressive, it makes your teeth resonate and tremble. Netrebko’s voice is a marvelous jewel right now, and I will follow her wherever the repertoire takes her. Go listen to her, if you can, just go. She is a Diva, she relishes that part, but she is NOT overrated. At all.
Her interpretation of the Lady was insightful and emotional. She has played enough young, innocent girls in love, and is now clearly having a ball with the role of the evil, scheming, mature woman. Her greed for power and dominance is evident in her carnal, sensual legato (“voluttà del soglio”, indeed), her loathing for her weak, guilt-ridden husband is cruel, expressed with hissing notes between clenched teeth. And the sleepwalking scene, where her own guilt finally crushes her, was a masterpiece, nothing overdone, her voice and acting showing the Lady’s frailty, bringing us almost to empathize with her. The toast scene deserves a mention: she sings the first round as a girlish ballad, trying to involve the courtesans, and then, in the second take (after Macbeth has made a scene after seeing Banquo’s ghost) she hurls the toast to the Court, growling the song, daring them to acknowledge Macbeth’s weakness, forcing them to play along. It sounded like somebody else was singing. The costumes were fitting both to Lady Macbeth and to Lady Trebs: she looked like Snow White’s evil step-mother in her black robe with super-long sleeves, and the golden dress in the second act was SO Trebs!!
The production was the old one, by Phyllida Lloyd, which I had already seen years ago. It is very dark. Extremely dark. It works well from the first rows, where I was sitting, but I heard that if you are farther away, it just looks like a black background. The best idea is that the witches are the motor of action of the whole story: they not only foretell the events, but they actively make them happen, guiding the characters towards their destiny. For example, it is a witch who delivers the letter to Lady Macbeth in the first act, a witch who helps Banquo’s son to escape the assassins, and the witches conjure Banquo’s ghost, who brings Macbeth to folly. Another good idea is an enormous golden cage on stage to represent royal power, which elevates Macbeth and his wife, but also traps them and brings them to ruin. Overall, Lloyd’s production worked for me.
The chorus was fantastic!! It has a big role in Macbeth, and they were just perfect. The witches, with their monobrow, were snarly without losing musicality, and the finale primo was just unbelievable. I enjoyed their performance immensely. In the pit we had Pappano, who knows his Verdi, and did a great job, as usual, I would say. Nothing striking, but just a very enjoyable performance.
Macbeth was Željko Lučić, who has a very solid belcanto technique, a wonderful legato and a beautiful voice, which sometimes tends to go too much in the nose, but not so much to become a nuisance. I did understand the critics, who said that he sings everything “all the same”. But, honestly, one of the problems is that he is pitched against Netrebko, who has an enormous palette at her disposal, and, by comparison, he comes out a bit monotonous. Also, I did appreciate his moment of craziness (during the toast) where he managed to find accents that conveyed his desperation. He is also not a great actor, but, once again, next to a “normal” singer we wouldn’t notice that, probably. I liked him a lot, Ìm not sure who could be a better Macbeth these days. OK, Luca Salsi and Tezier, fine.
Ildebrando d’Arcangelo was Banquo. I just don’t like him very much, he has good technique and attempts also some phrasing, but his voice is always rough on the edges, and he sounds like he’s shouting even if he’s not, objectively, doing that. But that may be me, I find his voice a bit annoying, it’s probably a personal thing, he’s honestly pretty good.
And now we come to the husband of the wife, Yusif Eyvazov, who has one the hardest jobs in the world, and nothing he does will ever be enough. OK, this is my take. His voice is ugly. Just plain ugly, and there is nothing anybody can do about that. He has the right technique, his emission is very good, he has the right approach and is clearly putting a lot of effort into becoming a better singer. But the color of his voice is U-G-L-Y. As my friend Gianluca Florezido says, if he sang in second-tier opera houses, such as Stuttgart, Stockholm, Lyon, nobody would notice. He would be one of those OK tenors, surrounded by OK singers, and he would have a “normal” career, like hundreds of others. But no. The wife imposes him on first-tier opera houses, he shares the stage with her, a genius, one of the most impressive voices of I don’t know how many years, and the comparison between him and the rest is tragic. In the concertati, where there is a piano, everybody just sings beautifully and then you hear that “PEEEEEE” which seems to come through an intercom, and, sure enough, it’s him. Poor fellow. Anyway, as I was saying, his technique is good, and he finally did a good job in his aria, and collected maybe the only applause which stopped the show and was not directed to the wife.
Honorable mention to Francesca Chiejina and Simon Shibambu, who, as the lady in waiting and the doctor, participated to the sleepwalking scene and really made an impression even in such small roles.
Tl;dr; TREBS IS AMAZING!
Opera. My 2 cents. 
and collected maybe the only applause which stopped the show and was not directed to the wife.
but I think it was 😉
Chiejina and Shibambu have some badass voices for so young. Sometimes ROH knows how to picks their hopefuls. I hope good things are in store for them 🙂
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