Vieni t'affretta

MACBETH
Melodramma in 4 atti
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave & Andrea Maffei, after Shakespeare
First performed: Teatro della Pergola, Florence, 14 March 1847; revised version: Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, 19 April 1865

SETTING: Scotland, 1040

PLOT: Macbeth and his wife murder their way onto the throne of Scotland.

No. 3 – Cavatina di Lady Macbeth: ‘Vieni! t’affretta!’
Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband telling her of the witches’ prophecy that he will be king. ‘The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements,’ she proclaims.

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe-top full of direst cruelty! …
Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’’

Lady Macbeth: Shirley Verrett
Servo / Servant (bass): Giovanni Foiani

Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala
Conductor: Claudio Abbado
Milan, 1976