By MATTHEW GUREWITSCH [NY Times, 21 October 2007]

THOUGH few would deny that Verdi’s “Macbeth,” based on Shakespeare’s tragedy, is a work of genius, experts may disagree about the true nature of Verdi’s achievement. Adrian Noble, a former director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London who has staged the play twice, points to Verdi’s scene of Scottish refugees lamenting the state of their country under the tyrant’s yoke, a far cry from Shakespeare’s political game of cat-and-mouse among fugitive Scottish nobles.