Opera Scotland

Macbeth 2009Edinburgh International Festival

Read more about the opera Macbeth

This concert performance was perfectly adequate, but didn’t really seem to have any particular purpose, in the context of the Festival as a whole. It did bring to Edinburgh several prominent singers who would not be heard here otherwise, and who had not yet been heard in London. As in 2003, John Relyea was quite outstanding as Banquo. There was a noticeably impressive young tenor, Nicholas Phan, as Malcolm, but otherwise there was a bit too much sense of routine, even from David Robertson, who didn't produce the visceral sounds extracted by Sir Charles Mackerras in 2003.