I just returned from a magnificent performance of the Washington National Opera’s “Macbeth” at the Kennedy Center. The music reviewer for the Washington Post wrote an excellent account of the many masterful elements of the production after it opened last week:

 Dark powers guide dagger-sharp ‘Macbeth’ at Washington National Opera – The Washington Post

Rather than discuss the performance itself, I’d like to share some strong feelings that arose in me while watching it.

I first encountered Shakespeare’s classic play, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, as a sophomore at my Catholic boys’ high school in Buffalo, NY. My English teacher, Rev. Claude Bicheler, had us read much of it aloud in class, stopping frequently to explain some of the arcane Elizabethan English. Rev. Claude was an avid theatergoer and also the director and producer for all our school plays and musicals. He had a way of making the story of Macbeth come to life and encouraged us to persevere even when we were feeling lost. Like many, I was most taken with the scenes of the witches who foresaw and steered the infamous, homicidal direction of Macbeth’s thirst for power.

I had seen some stage versions of the play later in life. I appreciated the keen psychological rendering of the character Macbeth and Lady Macbeth given by Shakespeare, but never felt deeply affected by the story. It all seemed a bit melodramatic to me.

I became an opera fan during my college years (1967-1971) at Fordham University in the Bronx. A friend in my dormitory would listen to the live radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons. I overheard the music and asked him about his interest in opera. He invited me to join him the following Saturday to listen to something called “The Barber of Seville”. He had a copy of the libretto (text) of the opera, and he helped me follow along as we listened to the live singing. My friend was a native New Yorker who had been attending live opera performances at the Met and the New York City Opera for many years. His enthusiasm was contagious. And being able to closely follow the story line of the opera while listening to the Met broadcast drew me in. My friend regularly attended both of the opera theaters at Lincoln Center in midtown Manhattan and I started to accompany him. I was soon hooked.

The nineteenth century Italian Giuseppe Verdi is a giant among opera composers. Over the years, I had listened to recordings and attended performances of many of his most famous operas, including: La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, Aida, Don Carlo, Otello, Nabucco, La Forza del Destino, and Simon Boccanegra.

When I met and married my spouse, Andrea DiLorenzo, in the mid 1980’s, one of the strong common passions we shared was for music of all genres, but opera in particular. We’ve attended dozens of operas together over the years in venues including the Kennedy Center Opera House in DC, the Wolf Trap Summer Opera, the Met in New York, the Pittsburgh Opera, the Charlottesville Opera, Covent Garden in London, and the Mexico City Opera. It became a tradition for us to get opera tickets for Andrea’s birthday every year, and it just so happened that “Macbeth” was being performed in November, her birthday month. We got the tickets some months ago and were eagerly anticipating the performance, which we’d be attending with another couple.

Neither of us had ever encountered Verdi’s “Macbeth”, which is an earlier work of the composer and not often performed. I had learned from my Fordham dorm-mate the importance of becoming familiar with an opera before attending. So a few weeks ago, I began listening to a recording of the opera via a streaming service, following along with a libretto that I easily downloaded.

The story of “Macbeth” is dark and menacing. It’s about a Scottish warrior and his wife, Lady Macbeth, who become addicted to political power by any means necessary. The witches provide a dark supernatural element, a kind of black magic, which convinces Macbeth that he can rise to kingship by killing off the king himself and all potential rivals. He does so in a cold, calculated way and soon gets the coveted kingship. Lady Macbeth eggs him on, scorning her husband at any sign of hesitation. Eventually, their heinous crimes, which include the murder of innocent women and children of their rivals, begin to take a toll on their psychological wellbeing. They both start drifting into a guilt-ridden madness. Lady Macbeth commits suicide, and Lord Macbeth throws himself into one final battle against the king of England’s army and is fully vanquished by Macduff, a former aide whose entire family was murdered by Macbeth’s minions. Macbeth’s last aria laments that he is utterly alone in death, unloved, even hated by his people.

The part of the opera that most moved me this afternoon was a choral piece about the suffering and oppression suffered by the Scottish people during Macbeth’s short, bloody reign. It is called “Patria Oppressa” (Oppressed Homeland) and laments the dire suffering of so many victims of Macbeth’s onslaughts. A translation is as follows:

Oppressed homeland of ours!
You can no longer have the sweet name of Mother
Now that you’ve become a tomb for our sons and daughters.
From the orphans, from those who mourn for husbands and children
A cry of outrage goes up to heaven at each new dawn.
To that cry heaven replies, moved by pity for the oppressed land,
And proclaims our grief forever.
The bell tolls constantly for death,
But no one is so bold to even shed a vain tear
For the suffering and the dying.

The “Patria Oppressa” chorus affected me so deeply because I was still feeling traumatized in the aftermath of the American presidential election last week. I was anticipating a great deal of chaos and suffering that this chorus gave voice to.

Throughout the unrelenting treachery and deceit of the Macbeth story as sung so masterfully by the outstanding singers, I’d been feeling queasy inside, as if the opera was depicting a kind of political dystopia that I feared our country had already entered. The chorus also evoked in me an identification with the peoples around the world suffering under the weight of violent oppression in the Ukraine, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere.

In the case of the American election, I realize that the oppression I was anticipating was brought about by the American electorate. In some ways, that realization made the situation even more painful.

When Verdi revised “Macbeth” for a new production in Paris in 1867, he added a number of important elements that remain in the version that has been used since then. In Shakespeare’s tragedy, the play ends with Macbeth’s last words after having been mortally slain: “I sink – my soul is lost forever.” But in 1867, Verdi added a final chorus that followed the death scene. It is the rousing “Inno da Victoria” (Hymn of Victory) which celebrates the death of a tyrant and gives glory to the liberators:

Victory! Victory!
Where is Macbeth?
Where is the usurper?
The God of Victory has struck him down with a breath.
He (Macduff) is a valiant hero who killed the traitor.
He has saved our homeland and our king.
Honor and glory to him!
Our gratitude rises to the great God of vindication!
Let us sing hymns of glory!
The new dawn will bring us peace and glory!”

I was relieved to vicariously experience the victory so triumphantly celebrated as the opera ends. Verdi himself was emphatically committed to the cause of Italian independence during his lifetime. Many of his other operas have hidden allusions to that quest as well. When Italy finally did achieve independence, Verdi was elected and served for four years in the first Italian legislative body.

Andrea and I have been active politically since the 2016 presidential election. We have formed two political groups since then, both of them meeting monthly, both committed to sustaining a strong democracy. We were heartbroken that Kamala Harris failed to convince enough voters to elect her, despite a high energy campaign, and her winning persona.

Many of us are justifiably wary of the kinds of oppression that the current president-elect is capable of. Watching the masterful production of Macbeth yesterday elicited some of my darkest fears of what’s in store for our country over the next four years. But Verdi’s triumphant closing statement, a Hymn to Victory, served to buttress an underlying belief that all is not lost, and that the forces of Good will ultimately prevail. As the story of Macbeth shows, the forces of evil often sow the seeds for their own ultimate destruction.

John Bayerl, 11/17/2024