About the work
Opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi after William Shakespeare's tragedy, first performed on 14 March 1847 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave with additions by Andrea Maffei. For a Paris version in 1865, Verdi recomposed several numbers and added a ballet and an expanded chorus of witches.
Plot
Spurred on by the witches' prophecies, the Scottish general Macbeth and his wife have King Duncan murdered and seize power. Driven by Lady Macbeth's ambition, the couple pile crime upon crime as suspicion grows around them. In the end Lady Macbeth is destroyed by guilt, and Macbeth falls in battle against the forces that restore rightful order.
Cultural significance
For Macbeth, Verdi deliberately dispensed with a conventional love plot and bel canto beauty of tone: for Lady Macbeth he explicitly wanted a harsh, 'ugly' voice rather than a beautiful soprano, and had the role's first interpreter observe a real sleepwalker to make the sleepwalking scene as truthful as possible. The opera is considered his first major engagement with Shakespeare and remained especially close to his heart throughout his life.