The 1938 production was the UK premiere of the revised version and the first to combine the death of Macbeth from the 1847 version with the triumphal ending from the 1865 version, something totally against Verdi's wishes. Glydebourne revived it in the 1950s as did Teatro alla Scala in 1952 with Maria Callas as Lady Macbeth, but it was not until 1959 that it appeared on the Metropolitan Opera's roster for the first time and has often been performed there since then. The Opera Guild of Montreal presented the Canadian premiere of Macbeth in January 1959, beating the Metropolitan Opera by two weeks. Similarly, the first presentations at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Tito Gobbi (and then others in the title role) took place on 30 March 1960, with other productions presented in 1981 and 2002. The visiting "Kirov Opera" (as today's Mariinsky Opera was then known), presented it in London at Covent Garden in 2001. In recent times, the opera has appeared more frequently in the repertories of companies such as the Washington National Opera (2007) and the San Francisco Opera (Nov/Dec 2007) and in many other opera houses worldwide, but almost all productions stage the revised version in Italian. However, the 1847 version was given in concert at the Royal Opera House on 27 June 1997 and both the original and the revised versions were presented in 2003 as part of the Sarasota Opera's "Verdi Cycle" of all the composer's operas in their different versions. In 2012, the Grand Théâtre de Genève presented a production of the opera under the direction of Christof Loy. Today, Verdi's Macbeth receives many performances at opera houses all over the world. Roles Synopsis Note: there are several differences between the 1847 and the 1865 versions which are noted below in text in indented brackets Place: Scotland Time: 11th century Act 1 Scene 1: A heath Groups of witches gather in a wood beside a battlefield, exchanging stories of the "evils" they have done. The victorious generals Macbeth and Banco enter. The witches hail Macbeth as Thane of Glamis (a title he already holds by inheritance), Thane of Cawdor, and king "hereafter." Banco is greeted as "lesser than Macbeth, but greater", never a king himself, but the progenitor of a line of future kings. The witches vanish, and messengers from the king appear naming Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth protests that