On this day in 1847 Verdi’s Macbeth premiered at the Teatro della Pergola in Firenze. 

The Guardian, 11 April 1847:

In the music we have found a number of fine and striking things, which show the young Italian maestro to have been more deeply imbued than we could have imagined with the spirit of Shakespeare. The scene in which Lady Macbeth enters, reading the letter announcing the King’s arrival, gives great scope for the powers of a vocal tragedian; and Madame Barbieri Nini, in it (as well as throughout the part) is said to have electrified the audience. She reads the letter in a speaking voice, accompanied by the low tremolo of the orchestra, and then gives vent to her ambitious aspirings in a piece of agitated recitative, followed by an aria of great force and grandeur.