Sometimes you get up in the middle of the night realizing that what is done can never be undone. For Lady Macbeth, no amount of handwringing (or hand-washing) can clear her conscience. She and her husband have done some really, really bad things in their pursuit of power, but it’s Lady Macbeth whose ambition drives her to midnight rantings about her crimes.

In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene – her final appearance in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera based on Shakespeare. It’s a rumination on ambition and the dangers of running too hard at the things we desire the most. Or at least the things we think we deserve. At the end of the show, soprano Anna Netrebko sings the complete aria “Una macchia è qui tuttora” – Out, damned spot! – from the Metropolitan Opera stage.

The Guests

Leading soprano Anna Netrebko started her career singing the sweet and innocent Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and now she’s completely at home playing Verdi’s murderous queen. She knows many highly ambitious people, but not one of them has ever killed a king (that she knows of). Netrebko debuted as Lady Macbeth at the Met in 2014. 

Anne Midgette’s lifelong love of Giuseppe Verdi began with Macbeth. As the Washington Post’s classical music critic, she’s written on Verdi and much more over her 11-year tenure. Her husband recently caught her singing Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in the shower. They are still married.

Tana Wojczuk is a writer and teacher at New York University. She’s the author of the forthcoming Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America's First Celebrity which tells the story of the 19th-century actress who changed how we look at the role of Lady Macbeth.

Special appearance from Dame Judi Dench. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Dench made a name for herself performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and twice starred as Lady Macbeth.