Berlin tonight gets a last-minute American Lady Macbeth
OperaMessage from Felicia Moore:
I’m pretty shocked this is happening but I am now taking over the full run of Marie-Ève Signeyrole’s new production of Macbeth here at @deutscheoperberlin with Maestro Enrique Mazzola at the podium!!
I have such a history with the Lady herself. I first performed her monologue at Juilliard seven years ago, and then worked on a pastiche of her most famous lines with our beloved Eve Shapiro, which she called Lady Macbeth’s Nightmare. A few years later I learned the role for @heartbeat_opera’s Lady M, which was cancelled because of COVID- although we went on to do online performances at the start of the pandemic. All of this to say…I’ve been ACHING to perform this role. It’s a thrill and a challenge to find my way through this character. And I love knowing that Verdi did not want or care for a beautiful voice in this role. With so many roles being about desirability and purity (oh hiiiii patriarchy), it’s a relief to find ambition and the limits of hunger at the heart of Lady Macbeth.
… I hope you come see our show if you are in the Berlin area— but please know there are major content warnings surrounding the death of a child, infertility and stillbirth, as well as the grief that follows in this production. Please message me if you want to know more specifics so you can have a safer time at the theater. Take care of yourselves xo
Ms Moore replaces Anastasia Bartoli.
Just back from the premiere. Bravi for Ms. Moore, the singers, chorus, orchestra. Well-deserved, loud boos for the Regie! Lost count of how many dead children there were, very vivid scene of artificial insemination, stillbirth – and cryptic messages from an AI character.
As well as an authentic appeal by a chorus member to support the fight against the proposed, across the board cuts to the cultural budget of Berlin. Currently at 130 million EUR for 2025 and the same again for 2026.
Ms Moore is so confused:
1) “so many roles being about desirability and purity (oh hiiiii patriarchy)”
I wonder who wrote Macbeth, Shakespeare’s wife? I wonder who composed Macbeth, Verdi’s daughter?
You can blame the patriarchy for Macbeth.
And what, the matriarchy prefers the undesirable and the impure?
In the words of that horrible patriarch Sappho: “The handsome man is handsome only in looks. The pure man pure as well as handsome”
2) “please know there are major content warnings surrounding the death of a child, infertility and stillbirth … have a safer time at the theater.”
It’s Macbeth! It’s literally in the plot, in the lines, you’d have trigger warnings for Macbeth? ear plugs and eye shields for those who came to see Macbeth not to see or hear Macbeth?
What, in Ms Moore’s portrayal of Lady Macbeth, she trigger-warns Duncan that that there will be a lot of blood tonight, and invites him to the castle’s safe room?
Shocking but true: many people go to the opera without having read the libretto, score, and the collected works of William Shakespeare in advance. If the warning’s not for you, carry on.
Every day, walking to work, I see plenty of parking signs, yet I am not a car. Somehow I am still able to function in society and I understand different messages may aim at different people.