VERDI : OTELLO

VERDI'S OTELLO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 30th of March 2008 at 3 pm
(Sunday 22nd of July 2007 at 3 pm)
(after they have heralded the news
and predicted the weather)

COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
LIBRETTO
(Italian, by Arrigo Boito, after Shakespeare's Othello)

PERFORMERS
VERDI: Otello, an opera in four acts
Desdemona................... Renée Fleming
Otello............................ Johan Botha
Iago.............................. Carlo Guelfi
Emilia............................ Wendy White
Cassio........................... Garrett Sorensen
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Semyon Bychkov

Again we have the resources of the NYMetropera archives.
http://www.operainfo.org/

Placido Domingo appears as Otello in the 13 pictures accompanying the storyline. He is also in Zeffirelli's movie, with Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona.

His friend and rival Luciano Pavarotti recorded the role creditably, with the magnificent Kiri Te Kanawa; and he has done a concert performance (it is alleged that he had to be fortified with food on stage to get through the ordeal).

Verdi had heard a bit of Wagner's music before he composed Otello, and so we have a continuous stream of music, but some of the pieces can be extracted, notably Desdemona's Willow Song and Iago's Credo.

It was Verdi's 27th opera, first performed in 1887, when he was 74. Falstaff followed in 1893. Dennis Forman (The Good Opera Guide) awards an Alpha to Otello, but a Beta to Falstaff!

Have you heard Rossini's Otello (1816)? There are three tenors (José Carreras, singing Otello magnificently, is one of them in the Philips recording). Rossini's version has Shakespeare's subtitle, 'The Moor of Venice', and it takes place in Venice, not Cyprus. Verdi starts with a storm at sea (as in Othello Act 2), while Rossini ends with a storm. No Cassio in Rossini, and no handkerchief; instead Otello is shown a lock of hair and a love letter, which he thinks Desdemona had sent to Roderigo, but it had been intended for him, and her father had intercepted it. Rossini's Otello stabs her and himself, not pillow and then dagger. But Rossini offered an alternative ending, wherein the heroine did not die!

The broadcast includes Margaret Juntwait interviewing Teddy Tahu Rhodes, for reasons best known to herself (he is not in Otello). But no quiz! Only one interval, and this time the delightful Renée Fleming can not interview herself and Johan Botha, so Mary Jo Heath takes the roving microphone backstage.

2007
Otello............................ Johan Botha
Desdemona................... Krassimira Stoyanova
Emilia............................ Nadia Krasteva
Iago.............................. Falk Struckmann
Cassio........................... Marian Talaba
Roderigo....................... Cosmin Ifrim
Lodovico...................... Ain Anger
Montano....................... Vladimir Moroz
Herald........................... Hacik Bayvertian
Vienna State Opera Chorus & Orch/Daniele Gatti (recorded in the Vienna State Opera House by Austrian Radio)

The Metropera will be broadcasting Otello next year:
Verdi, Otello, March 1, 2008
Semyon Bychkov, Renée Fleming, Johan Botha, Carlo Guelfi
Notice it is Johan Botha again, and we can expect to hear Krassimira Stoyanova in:
Bizet, Carmen, February 23, 2008
Emmanuel Villaume, Krassimira Stoyanova, Olga Borodina, Marcelo Alvarez, Lucio Gallo