In a sense it was “black Romanticism” that cast its shadow over the operatic repertory at the 1964 Salzburg Festival. Performed in the Felsenreitschule, Verdi’s Macbeth was a musical event of the first order, exciting to hear and powerfully acclaimed at the end. This was due not least to Wolfgang Sawallisch’s dramatically gripping conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic, but also to an exemplary pair of protagonists. In complete control of his formidable vocal gifts, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau provided a multifaceted portrait of the complex and unfathomable figure of Macbeth, while Grace Bumbry was no less impressive as Lady Macbeth, bringing to the part an unusual degree of demonism and proving to be in total command of the part’s tremendous vocal difficulties in terms of its length and range and performance values. The rest of the cast was without a single weakness, implying a Festival that is fully deserving of its name.