Verdi's "Macbeth' in Wilmington

Verdi's Macbeth isn't merely an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's drama. It also represents Verdi's channeling of Italy's mid-19th Century Risorgimento, or resurgence of freedom from foreign domination. Either way, it's an impressive work.

Verdi kept a complete set of Shakespeare's plays (in Italian translation) in his bedroom, and he used the Bard's scripts as inspiration for three of his best operas (Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff) as well as one more that he never completed, King Lear. In each he hewed faithfully to Shakespeare's words and figures of speech.

But an equally important element in Macbeth is the parallel between Malcolm's and MacDuff's struggle for liberation from Macbeth and the similar struggles of Verdi's countrymen against the Habsburgs at the time Macbeth opened in 1846. Verdi was active in the freedom movement led by Giuseppe Garibaldi; the composer's name was used as a rallying cry by Italians who wanted their own nation under Victor Emmanuel as king. (Verdi's name made a convenient acronym for "Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia.")

Verdi's operas immediately preceding Macbeth were best known for their hymns about freedom: the chorus of Hebrew slaves in Nabucco, and the chorus of Crusaders intent on liberating the Holy Land in I Lombardi. These found echoes in Macbeth with Verdi's lament for Scottish refugees, Patria oppressa ("Oppressed homeland").

Improving on Shakespeare

Verdi also wrote gorgeous choruses bemoaning the murder of King Duncan in Act I and celebrating freedom at the end. And in 1865, four years after the Kingdom of Italy was established, he added a final chorus proclaiming victory over a tyrant, "Salva, o re!" ("Hail, oh King"). Verdi wasn't merely adapting a great work of literature; he was nudging history in real time.

It can be argued that Verdi's added choruses actually improved upon Shakespeare— not only in Macbeth, but also in Act I of Otello, where the triumphant Othello is cheered by adoring crowds, and in Act III of Falstaff, where a large throng mocks the fat knight and then sings that "everything in the world is a jest."

Opera Delaware's recent handsome production offered impressive sets built locally, and sensible direction by Cindy Du Pont Tobias. Unlike the Met's new production of Macbeth, which conflates time and place and transforms the Scottish women into modern-day bag ladies, here the locale clearly was old Scotland.

Exciting new face

The baritone Grant Youngblood— who has sung at the Met, but not in roles as starry as this— made a world-class Macbeth, with a fine, well-projected voice and an appealing ability to convey the conflict between his ambitions and his conscience. It's still hard to believe the speed with which Macbeth decides to assassinate King Duncan, not to mention the wholesale murders he orders as the story progresses— but that's Verdi's fault, not Youngblood's.

As Lady Macbeth, Courtney Ames emerged as a force to be reckoned with— not only in the plot but as an exciting new personality in the world of opera. Her youth and attractiveness masked her malevolence, yet she sang with a fierceness that accentuated her evilness, only to exhibit pathetic vulnerability in her last-act sleepwalking "mad aria."

Lady Macbeth is an extremely difficult role; it even intimidated Maria Callas, and it played a role in her firing by the Met's boss, Rudolf Bing, in 1958. Yet Ames sailed into the part fearlessly, almost recklessly— just like Lady Macbeth, come to think of it. Her top notes soared above all the rest of the ensemble, just as Verdi intended.

Classic opera house

Ben Wager, a 2009 graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts, made an appealing Banquo; his farewell aria to his son was one of the production's highlights.

Giovanni Reggioli conducted with an appropriately restless surge that built up the tension of the story and the music.

This company performs in The Grand, a beautiful small house (capacity about 800), modeled after Europe's classic theaters. Its intimate size might not suit a later Verdi opera like Aida, which sometimes calls for large animals onstage, but its ambience is perfect for 18th- and 19th-century operas like this one.