'Macbeth' toils with brain, not heart
Leave your hankies at home and enjoy cerebral thrills.

By Catherine Reese Newton

In some ways, Verdi's "Macbeth" -- with its witches, ghosts and buckets of blood -- is a logical choice to open an opera season right before Halloween. In other ways, it's a daring choice: There's no love triangle, the central characters spend more time brooding than emoting, and almost all that blood is shed offstage.

Utah Opera's production, which opened Saturday at the Capitol Theatre, offers strong singing, stirring accompaniment from the Utah Symphony and handsome production values. Just bear in mind that "Macbeth" is talkier than most operas. (Not that the plot is difficult to follow; most people have at least passing familiarity with the story of the Scottish couple who are poster children for unbridled ambition.)

Louis Otey sings the title role with a dark-hued baritone that sounds smooth and secure from the bottom to the top of the range. Otey also is a convincing actor as he shows us Macbeth's increasingly tortured mental state. Soprano Brenda Harris, as Lady Macbeth, is given even more far-ranging music to sing, and she handles it expertly. (Verdi wrote that Lady Macbeth's singing should be "rough" and "devilish," but in the moments when the composer does grant her some lovely music -- such as her drinking song -- Harris delivers beautifully.) The dynamic between the couple, as she senses his fleeting misgivings and deftly steers him along his murderous path, is intriguing.

Joshua Kohl nearly steals the show with his impassioned portrayal of Macduff. The young tenor brings a jolt of urgency to every scene he's in, and the aria in which Macduff expresses his grief over his family's murder is arguably the emotional high point of the evening. Baritone Young-Bok Kim brings steady gravity to the crucial role of Banquo.

The chorus plays an unusually prominent role in "Macbeth," and Susanne Sheston's Utah Opera Chorus gives a powerhouse performance. The women get the meatiest scenes, playing a creepy coven of goblinlike witches with manifest glee. The four dozen singers also play courtiers, soldiers, assassins and refugees, each time with a show-stopping chorus.

Joseph Rescigno conducts the Utah Symphony in Verdi's rich and fascinating score. Woodwind playing in Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene is particularly picturesque.

Stephanie Sundine directs the action with a steady hand, though it's hard to get around the fact that Verdi turns most of the scenes into tableaus. There are many subtle but telling touches: For example, the first time we see Macbeth, he's wiping blood from his hands. Fight choreography by Morgan Lund ends the opera on an exciting note (and, in the finest Shakespearean tradition, Otey does some of his best singing after the fatal blow is struck).

The functional, bare-bones set comes from the New Orleans Opera. Most of the time, lighting designer Nicholas Cavallaro bathes it in blood-red light. Shades of red also dominate Susan Memmott Allred's costumes for the principal characters; the huge array of chorus costumes adds extra visual interest.