Macbeth

As Yuri Temirkanov can attest, Westerners love to typecast Russian artists. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's music director invariably is thought of first as a conductor of Russian repertoire, even if his approach to, say, Gustav Mahler is every bit as potent. Likewise, the Kirov Opera at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg invariably is thought of first as a company that performs Russian works, no matter how many other things it effectively puts on stage. Not surprisingly, then, the Kirov Opera's memorable visit to the Kennedy Center had the public clamoring most for performances of a Russian item, Mussorgsky's Khovanschina, rather than Verdi's early masterwork, Macbeth.

An earthy, brutal opera that offended Stalin, and an Oriental-flavored gem from the French repertoire are among the works planned for the Baltimore Opera Company's 2002-2003 season. These two jolts of novelty - Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Dmitri Shostakovich and Lakme by Leo Delibes - will be balanced by such perennial favorites as Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus and Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The Shostakovich production is Baltimore Opera's contribution to "Vivat!

Although the National Symphony Orchestra, like many ensembles across the country, adjusted its traditional light and breezy season-opening concert last week in the wake of Sept. 11, no changes had to be made to its first regular subscription program. It already had much to offer a public saddened and sickened, anxious and proud. There were two big items on the bill -- Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), which reflects a foreign visitor's positive experiences in this country; and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, which sing of nations raging and people muttering empty things, of fearing no evil, of goodness and mercy, and of how pleasant it is for people to dwell together as brothers.

Roll over, Verdi. Since 1847, the music world has recognized only one significant operatic version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the one by Verdi. That work is still in no danger of being supplanted, but audiences will soon get to hear a few notes by another eminent composer who, about 35 years before Verdi, was attracted to the idea of turning that play into an opera - none other than Beethoven. On Sept. 20 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the National Symphony Orchestra will give the world premiere of the Overture to Beethoven's Macbeth - or at least the next best thing.

VILNIUS, Lithuania - The curtain rises on a "Macbeth" with much of the dialogue and half the characters thrown out, and it was already Shakespeare's shortest play. No matter. The curtain doesn't fall again for another four hours. It's the spaces between the words that count when director Eimontas Nekrosius puts on a play - and there are plenty of them. Once, when he was a young man and his foes were Soviet censors, his audiences could fill those spaces with sharp and revelatory political meanings.

That damned spot. It's there in "Macbeth" whether it's there or not, hence the questions for any director who takes on the play: How much blood is too much or not enough? It's one thing to say that this William Shakespeare tragedy is thematically steeped in blood -- that the stuff metaphorically drips from the walls, bubbles from the witches' caldron, and darkens the skies over Dunsinane and the souls of its treacherous protagonists. It's another to actually deal with the red goo onstage.

Center Stage's production of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" emphasizes the play's violence and bloodshed. Yet even this focus on the visceral never truly grabs you in the gut. The most successful scenes in this loud, and at times crude, production are those involving the witches. In these supernatural interludes, director Tim Vasen's interpretation takes on a vitality and fascination often lacking in the rest of the evening. Admittedly, crudeness, noise and blood aren't bad choices for a play about 11th-century Scottish warriors.

Editor's note: This excerpt from Shakespeare's play about the misguided nobleman explores Macbeth's pivotal meeting with three witches who can see into the future.Macbeth sat brooding, his thoughts far away. "The Thane of Fife didn't come today.I wonder if he's hatching some plot.My spies will discover what I cannot.Tomorrow I'll meet the witches three, and ask what they can predict for me."The sisters were hidden in a cavern deep;Around the cauldron, they did creep.With their hands so crinkled with time,They stirred a stinking putrid slime.

Plans to alleviate traffic congestion on major roads in South Carroll, the county's most populated area, are running afoul of residents, who fear their side streets will become thruways.Nearly 100 MacBeth Way residents barraged the county commissioners at a public hearing in Eldersburg on Monday with complaints about traffic volume and speeding on their street, which is one of several officials plan to make into connector roads for local motorists.About 200 homes line both sides of MacBeth Way, a 3.25-mile road that nearly parallels Liberty Road, a state highway that is at the heart of Eldersburg.

To alleviate traffic congestion on major roads in Carroll County's most populated area, the county must complete long-planned connector roads there, officials said at a public hearing yesterday that drew about 100 people to Liberty High School in Eldersburg.The county is moving ahead with plans to build several vital connectors, including MacBeth Way, which it has dubbed a priority project. Like many secondary roads, MacBeth goes through several neighborhoods that have sprouted in the 22 years since the original transportation plan for the area was written.