Macbeth

“Double, double toil and trouble,” “what’s done is done,” “one fell swoop”: The language of Shakespeare’s great tragedy Macbeth is so ingrained in our culture that it often goes unnoticed. Yet despite its widespread familiarity, the play remains shocking for its penetrating portrayal of violence run amok. Add to that some witches, ghosts, and sleepwalkers and you have a recipe for an engrossing drama that harnesses the force of the supernatural to glean more acutely the inner workings of our own world.

The Met’s new production of Verdi’s thrilling adaptation marks the company debut of Louisa Proske, a brilliant young director making waves around the operatic world, who sees the work as a continuum connecting past and present. “To me, what’s emotionally relevant about the period of Shakespeare is that it was a moment in history where people were keenly aware that they were one step away from total chaos and social disintegration,” Proske remarks. “I think Shakespeare was one of the artists who really articulated the terror of living in an era that is deeply divisive, the sense of the world having gone mad. And I think we once again live in a time like that.”

Through studying Verdi’s opera and its relationship to Shakespeare’s tragedy, students will be able to explore questions of psychology, power, gender, and theatrical stagecraft—all while paying close attention to the interactions between music, text, and embodied performance that make opera an especially powerful form of dramatic expression. In so doing, they will come not only to appreciate the relevance of Macbeth both in its own time and in ours, but also to understand why Verdi wrote, in a letter to his benefactor, that Macbeth “is dearer to me than all my other operas.”  

Included in the 2007–8, 2014–15, and 2026–27 seasons of HD Live in Schools.