Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It was Verdi's tenth opera and also the first of Shakespeare's plays which he adapted for the operatic stage.
Written after the success of Atilla in 1846 by which time the composer had become well established, it was before the great successes of 1850 to 1853, Rigoletto...
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Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It was Verdi's tenth opera and also the first of Shakespeare's plays which he adapted for the operatic stage.
Written after the success of Atilla in 1846 by which time the composer had become well established, it was before the great successes of 1850 to 1853, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata which propelled him into universal fame. As sources, Shakespeare's plays provided Verdi with lifelong inspiration: some, such as King Lear were never realized but he wrote his two final operas using Othello as the basis for Otello (1887) and The Merry Wives of Windsor as the basis for Falstaff (1893).
The first version of Macbeth was completed during the middle of what Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". Ranging from 1842 to 1850, this period saw the composer produce 14 operas, but by the standards of...
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