Gaiety Theatre

Verdi

– Macbeth

Last week the actor and director Alan Stanford was quoted on these pages as saying: “To me a classic play is something to mess with.” It’s an attitude that Opera Ireland’s artistic director Dieter Kaegi seems to share in the area of opera. His messing with Verdi has reached a point that one almost trembles with apprehension in advance of any new Verdi production he’s involved with.

Yes, his new Macbeth, which is running at the Gaiety Theatre this week, has the token leather greatcoat association for military/ oppressor/bully/baddie. And the falling autumnal leaves that littered his 2001 Don Carlohave been recycled – a gesture of recessionary thrift, perhaps.

But the mostly spare production, designed by Ferdia Murphy, is by and large to the point. The witches, choreographed by Liz Roche, are clad and cowled in black, with blood-red gloves, and three of them transform into functionaries in Macbeth’s service, who can deliver fearful visions.

The black-bottomed white walls of the set can move and weave with adaptable threat, to create the claustrophobia of a film noir nightmare. The production presents its characters isolated with their psychological fates.

Canadian soprano Michele Capalbo, dressed in femme-fatale scarlet, expresses her hungry ambition through a voice that’s exciting and at times voluptuous, though she drives it with a pressure and edge that can lead to instability.

Northern Irish baritone Bruno Caproni is a mild, sometimes bemused Macbeth, whose voice doesn’t always centre well under stress, though his vocal command and presence improved as his situation deteriorated.

Marco Zambelli conducts the RTÉ Concert Orchestra with colour, flair and real drama, and the chorus, trained by Ilona Stepan, ranges from the superb to the frankly ill-disciplined. This new Macbethhas all the appearance of a production that should settle nicely during its short run.

• Opera Ireland's season runs until Sunday