All those words!
Verdi, of course, also used MacBeth and Otello to good advantage, turning the powerful tragedies into powerful operatic ventures, which lose none of their sweep or majesty in the musical conversion. As sometimes happens when dealing with the exigencies of theatre managers, Verdi was, against his will, constrained to write ballet music for the Parisian performances of MacBeth. In spite of his misgivings and frustration, this ballet music has found a life of its own as a concert hall orchestral staple, something not too many operas can provide.
The only Russian opera based (somewhat loosely, to be certain) on Shakespeare to have become a standard is Lady Macbeth from the Mtsensk District by Dmitri Shostakovich. His biting wit and sharp satire brought this tale a little too close to home for Josef Stalin, and it was consequently banned for most of the composer's lifetime. After the dictator's death, the opera was slightly revised, and in recent years, it has been performed -- and recorded -- internationally, sometimes under the name Katerina Ismailova.
When New York's Metropolitan Opera opened its glittering new house in 1966, it turned to the American composer for a stunning new work worthy of the golden curtains. Samuel Barber's inspiration? Antony and Cleopatra with the equally stunning Leontyne Price as Cleo.
Ballet has not been at all slighted by Shakespeare: the lush Romeo and Juliet by Serge Prokofieff provides wonderful mental images to the listener. In addition, The Tempest and Othello have also inspired choreographers.
Film has perhaps provided more of an audience than any other medium, as the wonderful variety of Shakespeare's dramas have been brought to life by, among others: Sir Lawrence Olivier (composer: Sir William Walton -- can anything be lovelier than his "Touch her sweet lips and part"?) and Kenneth Branagh ( Patrick Doyle.) Both men were Henry V , while Olivier was also Hamlet (as was Mel Gibson, of course) and Richard III. The Austrian-born Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote the light-hearted, yet memorable music for a mid-30s As You Like It some of which Branagh was clever enough to use for his mid-90s re-do.
The orchestral literature has also been enriched by the immortal Bard. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, that emotional Russian master, utilized Hamlet, The
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