Extracts from Macbeth Underworld by Pascal Dusapin

Published on 28 February 2020
en

All are dead but some are not aware of it. Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banco’s ghost, the child… This dead child is the cornerstone of the guilt haunting the Macbeths. Confined in operatic limbo, they are doomed to relive their past in an outer world that is guarded by nightmarish beings.

French creation
Opera by Pascal Dusapin on a libretto by Frédéric Boyer based on Macbeth by Shakespeare.
Co-commissioned by the Opéra Comique and the Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie, Macbeth Underworld was first staged in Bruxelles in 2019. Macbeth Underworld was scheduled to be performed at the Opéra‑Comique in spring 2020. The health crisis postponed this eagerly awaited première to 2023. Thomas Jolly invents an outer-world scenic space and Franck Ollu, fine connoisseur of Pascal Dusapin’s work, unfolds his acoustic universe.

Performing in English, With French and English surtitles

Cast (2023)

Musical direction Franck Ollu • Stage direction Thomas Jolly • With Katarina Bradić, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Maria Carla Pino Cury, Mélanie Boisvert, Melissa Zgouridi, Hiroshi Matsui, John Graham Hall, a child from the Maîtrise Populaire de l’Opéra-Comique • Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Lyon • Choir accentus

Macbeth Underworld

Pascal Dusapin

November 06 to 12, 2023

All are dead but some are not aware of it: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banco’s ghost, the child… The dead child is the cornerstone of the guilt haunting the Macbeths as it condemns them to relive the past.

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