The next step would be to have more women at the administration level, in charge of artistic choices. Now that there’s more awareness, I think that a lot of girls know that it’s possible to become a conductor. Tár has certainly catapulted the topic of female conductors to public consciousness, but what do you foresee as the next step toward better gender parity on the podium? In music we call it perpetual motion, and throughout the whole scene she relives every moment of the opera. Then there’s the semitone, which is exactly the same sound she heard in the first act when the owl in the night is singing. We have, again, the mute and the strings, and then this rhythm – da da dum dum dum tin – which is Lady Macbeth’s hands trying to get the blood off. Basically, Verdi, with just four elements, creates this mad scene. For me, musically, it only works if the voice matches those eerie muted strings.Īnother moment, which I think is spectacular, is the sleepwalking scene in the fourth act. And sometimes you hear it not done like that, just sung loudly. And so, this whole duet of Macbeth being scared for what he just did, and Lady Macbeth trying to convince him it’s okay, should all be whispered. In the score, when they sing, 90 per cent of the time it’s written con voce repressa and sotto voce, meaning Verdi was experimenting back in 1863 with these fairly modern sounds. It’s about 10 minutes of music where the whole scene is muted. Throughout the whole scene – from the monologue to the duet – Verdi sets the strings to play with the mute on. One is in the first act, in the duet between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth when he’s just killed Duncan. What moment in Macbeth fascinated you the most as you studied it? I’m actually being true to the music, but I have to interpret what’s written in order to make it come alive. Yes, Verdi wrote it like that, but it’s up to you to make it sound the way he maybe wanted it. This score has so many big moments that are in a major key, so you have to reinterpret what’s written on the page slightly. It’s not that I’m putting my stamp on the score, it’s just that I’m meeting the moment. What’s your philosophy when it comes to interpreting the score like that? And so that’s where my approach and interpretation as a conductor comes in. Suddenly it becomes this really eerie moment that can leave you breathless. So I asked the chorus to sing it with a lighter, more airy sound. In the text of that scene, he’s going mad, strange things are happening, ghosts are walking the Earth – and yet the music is in E major. Yet hell has just broken loose: Macbeth has seen the ghost of Banquo. I was doing a scene with the chorus the other day – the finale of Act Two – in the E major key, which you normally associate with more jolly music. In theatre, you have the text, and that has to be your driving force you can’t change it. What is your approach to bringing the music of Macbeth to life? On a coffee break in between tightly scheduled rehearsals for Macbeth (April 28-May 20), Scappucci discussed her approach to the podium, corralling the music of a Shakespearean opera and what ensembles can do to better support the next generation of female conductors. ![]() ![]() With Macbeth, it’s the text that’s canonical, and so Scappucci instead has to mine for intrigue in the most minute crevices of the music. The challenge with Seville was finding something new in some of the most recognizable pieces of operatic music. She returns now for another Italian masterwork wherein Giuseppe Verdi’s dramatically adventurous orchestration meets one of the most murderous plots in the English theatrical canon. Scappucci’s previous visit to Canada was for Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, also staged by the COC. This attentiveness extends well beyond the podium, as it takes some administrative know-how to make the most of the ever-shrinking rehearsal hours afforded by North America’s opera houses. ![]() Just listen to her breakdown of the Piangi, fanciulla duet from Rigoletto, which she recently conducted during her Metropolitan Opera debut, and you’ll appreciate how much passion she puts into crafting a scene.
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