Verdi e Shakespeare

Interessante il lungo articolo di Garry Wills, professore di storia alla Northwestern University, sulla passione che Verdi nutriva per Shakespeare. "Verdi could not read English—though his wife, who helped him, could—but he carefully compared the latest and best recent translations (some made by his friends or acquaintances). He had not been to England when he composed Macbeth, but he had acquired, from friends like Andrea Maffei, solid information on the way Macbeth was staged in the country of its origin. For Macbeth, he cut the play down to opera size himself, creating a prose synopsis for his librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, to versify. He was dissatisfied with Piave's work, correcting it, adding suggestions, above all trimming it. He wanted no wasted words. He insisted to Piave, Poche parole! Poche parole! Poche parole! (Few words! Few words! Few words!) Finally, in his exasperation with Piave, he had his scholar friend Andrea Maffei, an expert translator, correct portions of the libretto". nyrb. Nella foto: Željko Lučić nella parte di Macbeth nella produzione del Macbeth di Verdi di Peter Stein, Salisburgo, 2011.