The "Curse" of Macbeth

[Caius Marcius]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> 
wrote:

> There might be another connection between HP with Macbeth. Since it 
> is canon that Hogwarts School is about 1000 years old, there are good 
> chances that it was established under Macbeth's reign (I believe he 
> died in 1057). Moreover, if the HBP is (as some of us suspect) Godric 
> Gryffindor, then he may be a Prince because he was the son of one of 
> those kings (and a witch mother, naturally). Probably not Macbeth 
> himself, but maybe Duncan, although I personally favor the Saxon king 
> Harold, since he was the last of his line. 

The great if little-known British historical novelist Alfred Duggan 
(1901-1964) wrote a novel about King Edward the Confessor (The Cunning 
of the Dove) in which the travails of Edward's contemporary, King 
Macbeth, are frequently alluded to.

The "curse" seems to extend to Verdi's 1847 operatic version as well. 
In 1988, a Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Verdi's Macbeth was 
broken off when an elderly man seated in the balcony made a fatal leap 
into the orchestra pit. 

OTOH, Garry Willis' 1988 essay on Macbeth, "Witches and Jesuits", 
dismisses the "curse" as a mere urban legend, noting that any play as 
popular and widely performed as Macbeth is going to have more than its 
share of accidents and catastrophes. 

   - CMC