Verdi came to Shakespeare through Italian translations and had never seen
Macbeth on stage when he wrote his first version of the opera in 1847. Giorgio Melchiori nevertheless draws a parallel between the conditions in which the playwright and the composer were working - the constraints of writing to commission, for certain artists, and for a given date - and compares their achievements.
Verdi's substantial revisions of the score in 1865 led to a rejection of the earlier version of the text as well as the music. For this Guide, Jeremy Sams has made a new performing translation of passages from the 1845 version which do not appear later, so that this book offers a unique and easy way to compare and contrast Verdi's developing sense of opera.
