A two-opera Saturday for the books: Verdi at matinee hour, Mozart after dinner. It is ambitious, but then ambition has never caused any trouble in Macbeth.
Metropolitan Opera · Orchestra: V116, V117 & S108.
Metropolitan Opera · Orchestra: K114, K115 & K116.
Macbeth: Row V, seats 116–17, plus Row S, 108. Così: Row K, seats 114–16. The cards are framed here for the occasion; the actual barcodes remain safely offstage.
Just enough plot and listening context to enrich the day, without anyone having to write an essay before lunch.
Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy, condensed into a fever dream of prophecy, murder, guilt, and a marriage that should probably have considered a quiet weekend away instead.
Verdi makes the drama almost physical: ominous choruses, brutal orchestral colour, and Lady Macbeth at the centre of a very expensive bad decision.
The witches’ strange, clipped music; Macbeth’s terror after the crown; and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene, one of opera’s great reckonings.
Two young officers test their fiancées by returning in disguise. It is a daft premise, handled with such musical insight that one must forgive it almost immediately.
Under the comedy lies a clear-eyed look at desire, loyalty, and the fact that people are seldom as simple as they announce at supper.
The ensembles: voices moving in and out of agreement, then suddenly making perfect emotional sense. Mozart was annoyingly good at this.
Two shows work only if the space between them is treated as part of the programme, not an administrative error.
The gap between the two operas is part of the day, not a scheduling error. A comfortable dinner and a quiet reset are the order of things.
A reservation near Lincoln Center belongs on the list once chosen. It should be good, quiet enough to hear one another, and not heroic.
Seats and curtain times are confirmed. Cast and running-time changes remain, as ever, opera’s preferred sport.