Verdi’s operas have their share of sorcery but none embraces the supernatural like Macbeth, and few productions push it so far in that direction – as in this provocative DVD from the Salzburg Festival. It is a Macbeth of exceptionally tragic stature, with singularly mesmerising theatricality plus a vocally and dramatically accomplished cast.

Set roughly in the 1950s (a period whose relative stability seems waiting to be interrupted), Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production goes into hallucinatory realms with atmospheric in-constant-motion projections, baby dolls served at the banquet table, blood-soaked children delivering prophecies and a mass suicide. Amid those grand effects is a candid sense of humanity from Vladislav Sulimsky as Macbeth, Asmik Grigorian as Lady Macbeth and Jonathan Tetelman as Macduff, their individual tragedies building steadily amid everyday multitasking activities while hitting their high notes spot on.

Directorial elements sometimes veer into a somewhat separate story from the opera: the children who increasingly populate the stage may be agents of the witches (often wearing wizen masks) but also serve as a reminder that the boy Fleance, having survived the assassination of his father Banquo, is the hope for the future of Macbeth’s shattered kingdom. And it is shattered. Verdi’s political awareness is heard in the refugee chorus of Act 4 that reflects how Macbeth’s power-mongering has impacted the nation as a whole – dramatised by the aforementioned mass suicide during the chorus. It’s a questionable staging choice but is great theatre.

The state-of-the-art resources of the Grosses Festspielhaus’s widescreen stage are used to the maximum. Małgorzata Szczęśniak’s set design operates on multiple levels, often simultaneously. A witch headquarters has women in 1950s dress with a nonchalant manner suggesting that their malevolent vision is embedded in the society. An expansive waiting room doubles as a doctor’s office, banquet hall and train station, while a black-and-white video screen shows various unspeakable acts. Behind-the-scenes activity is seen on an elevated pedestrian hall, something like an airport jetway. Somewhat puzzling in later scenes is a giant sunburst in the rear of the stage. In some of the more effective shots in Henning Kasten’s video direction, the images mix in such ways that we don’t quite know where we are.

In the first moments of this story about the Macbeths murdering their way to the Scottish throne, Lady Macbeth is seen mostly on video screen receiving news from her doctor that she can’t have children. Does that void make way for her political ambition? It’s a better motivation than the more typical assumption that she’s just evil – or, as in the 2012 DVD from Covent Garden (Opus Arte, 7/12), that her ambition is an extension of the sexual heat with her husband. Onstage costume changes delineate their public and private selves, as well as their shifting social status and states of mind. More than in most productions, the Macbeth tragedy – both for her and for him – is less a failure of strategy and more an isolating descent into madness. As much as he and Lady Macbeth are driven their separate ways in the aftermath of their actions, a key shot – thanks to video director Kasten – is a close-up of their two distressed hands desperately seeking each other from the distant spheres of their respective tortures. Lady Macbeth also reappears in a zombie-like state, long after her suicide, which makes little literal sense though it’s effective to see their two dazed figures tied up (literally) together.

The singing is all of a piece with their characterisations. Sulimsky plays Macbeth more as a determined bully than a charismatic warrior, and one who is outclassed by the more charismatic (and vocally imposing) Tareq Nazmi as Banquo, making him a clearer threat to Macbeth. Grigorian conveys the conscience behind the stentorian vocal demands of Lady Macbeth, and does so long before the sleepwalking scene, such as in her Act 2 aria when she retreats into the foetal position. As Macduff, Tetelman makes the most of his stage time with white-hot rage over the death of his family.

Known more for conducting Wagner than Verdi, Philippe Jordan (who replaced Franz Welser-Möst) is an essential catalyst in the success of this operatic package. Verdi’s sense of shade and light can seem (to modern ears) like profundity giving way to triviality. But Jordan maximises the score’s force so that potentially trivial passages become needed breathing space. A few textual matters: Lady Macbeth’s reading of her husband’s letter in her opening aria is spoken by Macbeth. Makes sense. The witches’ ballet is dropped – good for maintaining momentum. Macbeth’s final aria ‘Mal per me che m’affidai’ from the earlier 1847 version of the opera is included – an appropriately stark final utterance that gives Verdi’s character the tortured stature of Boris Godunov.