Ko On Chan, PhD candidate in musicology

Verdi’s Macbeth (1865) and the Vanishing of the Unsexed Bodies

“Above all, bear in mind that there are three roles in this opera and three is all there can be: Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, and the chorus of witches,” writes Verdi on Macbeth (1865). Yet, none of these characters remains on stage till the end – they vanish, both visually and musically. The victorious chorus of Malcolm, Macduff, and the people becomes the last music we hear and we are left without information on where the witches or the bodies of the Macbeths go. We are, in effect, bewitched by their disappearance; and in vanishing, the Macbeths become themselves the witches.

    The three roles, I contend, are moreover unsexed before they vanish, as they obtain sonic bodies with gender expressions that differ from their physical ones through the binding of both genders and the fusion with an alien gendered subject. Paradoxically, this sonic witchiness becomes their source of beauty when situated or modified appropriately according to operatic conventions, and their disappearances afterward create only a greater sense of unfulfillment.

    In arguing so, I first illustrate how the roles are unsexed by means such as vocal timbre, tonal; and motivic association. Then, I bring attention to their temporarily beautiful moments – the ballet-pantomime for the witches, the sleepwalking scene for Lady, and the aria “Pietà, rispetto, onore” for Macbeth – before their ultimate vanishing. I conclude that this vanishing of the unsexed bodies is, in the end, the key to the dramaturgy of Verdi’s Macbeth.