Resonance Works Extends 10th Anniversary Season with Verdi's MACBETH

Resonance Works has added an exciting fifth production to close out the organization's 10th anniversary season. On May 18 and 20 at the Charity Randall Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland, Resonance Works revisits Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth, the work that launched the company back in 2013. The company brings to the stage a new essentialist production directed by Frances Rabalais, an alum of the Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist program, who partners with Resonance Works Artistic Director Maria Sensi Sellner and Associate Producer Robert Frankenberry for a fresh approach to this canonic work.

"I've always admired Verdi's unflinching commitment to giving the characters full room to be contradictory and complex. Whether it's Violetta in La Traviata or Iago in Otello, Verdi gives them the honor of being nuanced and more than stereotypes. I think this gift of complexity allows us to dig into what I feel are central questions in Macbeth: What is power when it is given? When it is taken? And, whatever way it comes, what does it cost? Through the ensemble-style casting and the intimate setting at the Charity Randall Theatre, the audience will be able to join us in asking those questions and spend the evening enjoying Verdi's generous humanity from a thrilling close-up vantage point." says Rabalais.

Building on the company's mission to bring new perspectives to classical music presented in intimate and fresh contexts, this Macbeth will utilize a unique ensemble cast from which the opera's characters will be drawn, and a new chamber orchestration by Frankenberry, while preserving the drama and music of Verdi's score. The performances will be presented during the Opera America annual conference, the world's largest gathering of opera administrators, artists, trustees, and advocates, which is being hosted in Pittsburgh this year.