The name of Lady Macbeth is synonymous with ambition. But Brenda Harris doesn't believe that's the character trait that makes her one of Shakespeare's iconic villains.

"There's not a darn thing wrong with ambition," said the soprano, who will star in Verdi's operatic version of "Macbeth" at Utah Opera. "The human race wouldn't achieve anything without it."

But unlike most people, who "have some way of tempering" their drive, Lady Macbeth lets it run amok. "Her flaw is not ambition, but that she doesn't really know herself well enough to know it will ruin her," Harris said. "She doesn't realize that she does have a conscience." In the end, "she's completely destroyed -- broken into pieces mentally -- by the guilt she carries."

Macbeth shows his misgivings earlier than his wife does, but he too is highly ambitious, director Stephanie Sundine said. He doesn't need much of a push from Lady Macbeth to kill those who stand between him and Scotland's throne.

Baritone Louis Otey, who will sing the title role, said Macbeth is no weak-willed puppet. "Lady Macbeth would not be attracted to a weak person," Otey said. "He's a warrior. He's manipulated by his thirst for power, not by Lady Macbeth. The idea is already there -- in his first aria, he sings of his 'thoughts of blood.' ... She helps flip the switch; she helps remove that last moral barrier."

As the story unfolds, the supernatural element also is important. "If anything, he's manipulated by the 'prophecies of hell,'" Otey said. "Evil always confronts us with a certain amount of truth." When the witches hail him as thane of Cawdor and king of Scotland -- ambitions he has harbored, but hasn't dared articulate -- "he thinks, 'They know me already.' Evil plays on what's inside us, our fears or lusts. ... It tickles those things we want to believe."

"Macbeth," which premiered in 1847, was Verdi's first setting of a Shakespeare play. ("Otello" and "Falstaff" followed at the end of the composer's life; his dream project, "King Lear," ultimately proved too unwieldy.) The play offers "an incredibly strong dramatic story," Sundine said. "Add Verdi's music to it and it's even better."

"This opera, for me, is when Verdi started to find his own voice," said conductor Joseph Rescigno, who will lead the singers and Utah Symphony. "Really, he's finding kind of a unique, special sound." Still, the influences of Berlioz and Beethoven are apparent: "A lot of the witches' music is reminiscent, at least orchestrally, of the last movement of [Berlioz's] 'Symphonie fantastique.' The English horn in the sleepwalking scene also has a Berlioz quality," Rescigno said. "And a lot of it is reminiscent of Beethoven -- the driving rhythms, the use of syncopation."

Why, then, isn't "Macbeth" produced more often? This will be only the second time Utah Opera has offered it, and the major reason is expense. "There are a lot of costume changes, not just for the principals but for the chorus," Sundine said. "It can't be done cheaply."

The singers of the chorus play an unusually large array of characters: witches, courtiers, soldiers, refugees. What's more, "you have to have really strong voices" in the leads, the director said. "Not everyone can sing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth."

Sundine thinks Harris and Otey are up to the challenge; both have sung the roles before. "They sing and act so beautifully," she said.

"We're all pretty pumped up," Otey said.

creese@sltrib.com