Opera Company's 'Otello,' Wilma's 'Macbeth,' and the high costs of Shakespeare

The cost of producing Shakespeare rarely comes with a discount, financially or psychologically. Even after 400 years of unbroken performance histories, the plays keep demanding more.

"Not a piece you do just any day," says Robert Driver of Verdi's Otello - the one operatic adaptation of Shakespeare that harnesses the full power of the original - which he's directing in its first Opera Company of Philadelphia production, opening Friday at the Academy of Music.

Across Broad Street, the Wilma Theater's co-artistic director, Blanka Zizka, is staging her first Shakespearean play, Macbeth, but says she might as well be doing an opera, with simultaneous rehearsals for fights, dialogue, music, and witches - all of which will come together in its first preview performance Wednesday. She admits to considerable trepidation: "I was very intimidated before I started."

The characters are towering. The stories depict the rise and fall of epochs. But the starting point for such ambitious Shakespeare-based productions is money. For both OCP and Wilma, these shows are the season's budget-busters.

The Macbeth saga of murder begetting murder on the Scottish throne required a $110,000 grant from the Philadelphia Theater Initiative, covering a 20-actor cast, two choreographers, and two composers. Costs are further offset by scheduling a mere three-character play later in the season, in this case Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy.

Though acclaimed as the single greatest Italian opera, Otello is not often seen because the story about a Moorish warrior brought down by jealousy requires twice the production of, say, Rigoletto. Lighter-weight operas get by with an orchestra of 30; Otello requires that the Academy's pit be stuffed to capacity with 69 players. Onstage, 68 choristers, 24 members of the Commonwealth Youthchoirs, and 13 principal singers require expensive period costumes. Some need two. The budget: $1.7 million.

Yet it isn't all about money. Zizka has been putting off this Macbeth for the last two seasons because, as a native Czech, the intricacies of Shakespearean language seemed beyond her. Only after working with language coaches from London's Royal Shakespeare Theater did she feel the endeavor was possible.

And now? "Everybody in my office says, 'You look so happy and you're just flying around here.' I'm having a really great time," she said. "When you do anything by Shakespeare, you have to look at what's been done before. And then you can stand on the shoulders of giants."