# What opera are you currently listening to / watching? CD/DVD



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

GregMitchell said:


> Of all Verdi's early operas, *Macbeth* is probably the most interesting. Written in 1847, he revised it in 1865, and, not surprisingly, some of the best music dates from the revision, the brilliant _la luce langue_, for one, which replaced the trite _Trionfai_. You might be surprised to know that one of the most effective moments in the score (Lady Macbeth's Sleepwalking Scene) actually dates back to the 1847 score. Verdi was continually refining his craft, and *Macbeth* is a good example of what he could do in his early days, when a subject and libretto really inspired him.
> 
> I could never be without the live Callas/De Sabata version. The sound is the biggest problem, but Callas towers over her no more than adequate colleagues in a performance of Lady Macbeth, unequaled in my experience. Incredible to think this was the first time she was singing the role in public, so great is her mastery of its demands. De Sabata takes the Sleepwalking Scene much too fast, IMO, and Callas's performance in her later recital, conducted by a more relaxed Rescigno, gains as a consequence. In the first two arias on the La Scala set, as in the rest of the role, she is resplendent.
> 
> ...


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