Chailly conducts Verdi's Macbeth – with Leo Nucci & Shirley Verrett

With Macbeth, Verdi set out to create a new kind of musical theatre – one in which the conventions of Italian opera came second to the dramatic demands of Shakespeare's bloody supernatural shocker. The French film director Claude d'Anna follows Verdi's lead in this naturalistic, powerfully atmospheric 1987 film version, which created quite a stir at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. "I tried to find theatrical rather than cinematic solutions," commented d'Anna; and with Riccardo Chailly conducting, Leo Nucci as Macbeth and Shirley Verrett in the formidable role of Lady Macbeth, the result is an operatic movie that matches Verdi's own uncompromising commitment to opera as raw drama.

Soloists: 

Leo Nucci (Baritone), Samuel Ramey (Bass), Shirley Verrett (Soprano), Anna Caterina Antonacci (Soprano), Veriano Luchetti (Tenor), Sergio Fontana (Bass), Antonio Barasorda (Tenor), Giuseppe Morresi (Bass), Gianfranco Casarini (Bass), Gastone Sarti (Bass), Natale de Carolis (Baritone), Barbara Briscik (Soprano), Marco Fanti (Boy Soprano)

Ensembles: 

Coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Conductor: 

Riccardo Chailly