Dr Jeff Brownrigg

Have you wondered where might you find the missing voices of great Australian singers?

Margherita Grandi, probably Australia’s finest Lady Macbeth, has been on 78s from 1947 and CD since 2006, but she is still rarely heard in the country of her birth. The fragments of her Macbetto (Verdi) deserve to be better known.
‘Behind every strong man, there is a stronger woman’ - so the old adage goes! Shakespeare’s Macbeth is an excellent example of one way in which the dangerous psychology of ambition can be present in a married relationship. In fact, in Verdi’s take on the Bard’s Scottish kingdom, Lady Macbeth is just called ‘Lady’ by his librettist. And the composer demonstrates Verdi’s belief, delivered in instructions to Piave, who had adapted Shakespeare’s words, that Lady is the more dynamic villain: the power behind the throne.  She drives her husband’s ambition more powerfully in Verdi’s opera than Shakespeare’s does. And she is quite capable of guiding and abetting the dirty work. The opera was premiered at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence in 1847. (Grandi’s recordings were made on the centenary of the premiere.)

When Verdi reworked the opera for its second public outing in Paris in 1865, he took an important speech given to Macbeth by Shakespeare and handed it over to Lady. Macbeth’s words in Shakespeare’s play run as follows: ‘Light thickens; and the crow, / Makes wing to th’ rooky wood; / Good things of Day begin to droop and drowse, / While Night’s black agent to their preys do rouse.’ (Macbeth, Act III Sc.2). Lady sings: ‘La luce langue, il fare spegnesi, / Ch’eterno scorre per gl’ampi cieli!’ (Macbetto, Act II Sc1.) Verdi wrote the words for this aria himself for that new production in Paris in 1865. He was keen to have the speech delivered by Lady, and puts her onstage by herself.

The following performance is from the first Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama in 1947. Taken from a radio broadcast conducted by Berthold Goldsmith, it was released on a Testament CD in 2006 with excellent liner notes by Roger Neill.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTaiIVBV_hU

Naturally enough, Verdi imagined the role of such a dangerous woman – who goads her husband into treachery and murder – for the darker tones of a dramatic rather than lyric soprano. Grandi singing and acting proved to be ideal for the role.

One of the great Lady Macbeths then, and one who left too few recordings of her wonderful voice in which we might appreciate her gift, was Australia’s Margherita Grandi. There is an excellent brief biography researched and written by Douglas Hassell in The Australasian Sound Archive (ASA) Number 8, September 1989 pp. 23-39. Grandi’s career and the inclination to make sound recordings were both seriously affected by theatre closures, dangerous travel, and reduced record production during WW2. As a result, most of her surviving, known recordings come late in her singing career, during the years after the War (1947) and up to her retirement in 1951. The ASA tried to make important research available, and Douglas’ excellent article is a useful guide to the life, career and sound recordings of this forgotten Australian.

Luckily, the sleepwalking/mad scene from Macbetto, ‘Una macchia è qui tutorra…’ was also recorded in 1948. In that year, Grandi sings with the Royal Philharmonic conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. Unlike ‘La Luce Langue’ this one is a studio recording on two HMV Red Label 78 rpm discs (DB 6739/67340) [11 minutes 58 seconds]. The earlier recording has a great deal of surface noise and the sounds of what appear to be the movement of props on the Edinburgh set. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuvO0qO9PqM

The CD is still available from Testament in the UK for £10.99. You might wish to check out their other CD offerings, including for example, a programme by the Australian pianist, Eileen Joyce. https://testament.co.uk/product/margherita-grandi/