# Verdi Otello: Noticing the Perfection.



## Guest (Jan 29, 2016)

Ok, I think Otello is a perfect Opera, and the greatest Verdi creation. I've been listening to it a lot, and I'm maybe on my 10th listening. I keep noticing so many details at each listening.
F
or example, I never noticed before that the prelude of the third act starts with a gloomy motif that is based on the music we hear when Iago talks about jealousy being a livid monster (hydra) (Temete, signor, la celosia! È un’idra fosca, livid)

Indeed, this is the act where the monster takes hold of Otello! 

I didn't get Otello on the first listening. But now, I'm addicted. Like it should be with all great music.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I surely do agree with you. It is a work of creative genius and when you add 3 great singers to the mix it becomes arguably one of the top 5 greatest operas ever. (IMO of course)


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

I absolutely love Otello. I believe that almost everything he does in it, musically and dramatically is totally intentional. Even the slightest things. 
This is my favorite recording:








In this, the conductor James Levine really emphasizes the trombones in the "_Si, pel ciel_" duet, which I find amazing. The way the trombones are displaced from the singers, not on the beat, and not where "they're supposed to be", shows how that is the moment that leads Otello to his fall from glory (trombones represent regality and honor).


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## Guest (Jan 29, 2016)

Listening to this version again today! It's a fave and thanks for pointing out the trombones in "si, pel ciel" 
I also really enjoyed this version






Tullio Serafin, Jon Vickers and Tito Gobbi 
The sound quality is nice and crisp and I love Tito Gobbi as Iago.


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## Guest (Jan 29, 2016)

When Desdemona sings in the first part of the 4th act: "“The fresh streams ran between the flowery bank" (Scorreano i rivi fra le zolle in fior), you hear a motif in the string that sounds like Smetana "Moldau." I wonder if there's a connection, as Ma Vlast was written nearly in the same years.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

It's hard to find a favorite but I guess the Vickers/Scotto/Macneil/Levine DVD is about as good as it gets.
Kudos should also go to the stupendous and brilliant librettist Arrigo Boito -- a genius in his own right.


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## Guest (Jan 29, 2016)

What's your second favorite recording (not DVD) besides the Levine/Domingo?


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## Guest (Jan 29, 2016)

By the way, would anyone be able to tell me about this leitmotiv in Otello.
I love to figure out what leitmotivs mean... This one occurs before "The kiss." Maybe "the fall of Otello" motif?


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I've known OTELLO since 1999. I can remember sitting in the George Mason University library during my free periods, listening to the above-mentioned Levine recording and watching the Covent Garden video with Solti conducting Domingo, Te Kanawa, and Leiferkus. To be honest, at that time I respected the opera more than I loved it; then in 2007 or so I went through a period of infatuation where I was constantly listening to and watching it (same two performances). Now if I had to make a list of my five favorite Verdi operas, OTELLO would probably be #4, with RIGOLETTO, LUISA MILLER, and MACBETH ahead of it (that's just my personal taste).

My favorite sections of OTELLO include parts of the long Act II Otello/Iago scene, the Quartet, and Act III's "Dio ti giocondi." If I could delete one portion of the opera it would be that "Fuoco di gioia" chorus in Act I. This probably sounds like heresy or something, but I've always found it silly-sounding; I tend to think Verdi wrote it simply to give Iago more of a pause between his recitative and Drinking Song.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

For sentimental values ( I was there and Mrs,Fleming shoot to stardom) this one stands out to me.:tiphat:

On CD, no one comes even close to this one:



Try the fists barres and you will be sold:tiphat:


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## Jeffrey Smith (Jan 2, 2016)

I have seen it once, as a college student during what was then the Met's annual spring tour
_
Atlanta, Georgia
May 1, 1979

OTELLO {235}
Giuseppe Verdi--Arrigo Boito

Otello..................Richard Cassilly
Desdemona...............Gilda Cruz-Romo
Iago....................Sherrill Milnes
Emilia..................Jean Kraft
Cassio..................Frank Little
Lodovico................James Morris
Montàno.................Robert Goodloe
Roderigo................Andrea Velis
Herald..................Arthur Thompson

Conductor...............James Levine_

What I most remember is Milnes.

As for recordings, I learned the opera from the Rysanek/Vickers/Gobbi/Serafin recording ( with the same cover!) and am heavily biased in its favor.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Pugg said:


> For sentimental values ( I was there and Mrs,Fleming shoot to stardom) this one stands out to me.:tiphat:
> 
> On CD, no one comes even close to this one:
> 
> ...


Domingo and Del Monaco would today get into trouble with the PC brigade who have now decreed white Otellos must not use black make up! Of course, the PC people don't appear to realise they are acting and what they see on the stage is not real!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/a...the-blackface-nods-to-modern-tastes.html?_r=0


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

I see the usual suspects who hop on to all and sundry threads only to be freaked out or disgusted by anything vaguely 20th century, so indulge me be the one here to say Otello might be the best of Verdi, but that's not saying much. I'm sure it's clever as a grand opera but not much appeal for the music-lover who wants something more than 19th century Italian pop music


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

dgee said:


> I see the usual suspects who hop on to all and sundry threads only to be freaked out or disgusted by anything vaguely 20th century, so indulge me be the one here to say Otello might be the best of Verdi, but that's not saying much. I'm sure it's clever as a grand opera but not much appeal for the music-lover who wants something more than 19th century Italian pop music


Can I just say I'm one of the 'usual suspects' as you condescendingly call us who thoroughly enjoy Otello and I'm not the least freaked out by modern music. I enjoy many works of the 20th century but some of the discordant stuff written in the 20th century which passes for music I simply don't like. But I am not 'freaked out' by it. I simply don't listen to it as I don't listen to music I don't like. Why should I? I don't enjoy soccer either so I don't watch it. But I'm not 'freaked out' by it. So please don't be so condescending.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Can I just say I'm one of the 'usual suspects' as you condescendingly call us who thoroughly enjoy Otello and I'm not the least freaked out by modern music. I enjoy many works of the 20th century but some of the discordant stuff written in the 20th century which passes for music I simply don't like. But I am not 'freaked out' by it. I simply don't listen to it as I don't listen to music I don't like. Why should I? I don't enjoy soccer either so I don't watch it. But I'm not 'freaked out' by it. So please don't be so condescending.


May I add my sincere gratitude to this?:tiphat:


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Good. Well maybe don't enter discussions of said discordant music in that case


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Is there some reason you should enter discussions of music you don't care for, while others should not? I sense some discontinuity here. :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

dgee said:


> Good. Well maybe don't enter discussions of said discordant music in that case


Why not? You have just entered a discussion of music you obviously despise. No problem with me but don't then try to gag others who don't share your opinion!


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

dgee said:


> 19th century Italian pop music


After that remark you'll never convince me you've actually bothered to listen to it. Enough of feeding the troll.

Perfection indeed and yes Boito deserves huge praise for his work which sits at the peak of a Librettists art. Not only how it condenses and improves Shakespeare, but how it tempted the old man back to work. Which takes nothing away from Verdi, together they achieved something astonishing.

I admire Domingo and Del Monaco but 30 years ago I listened to the great Verdi scholar Julian Budden on the radio pick out his recommended version, the Toscanini. A firecracker and one of my all time favourite recordings.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Otello is a remarkable work being so much better than Shakespeare's play. The last time I saw it as a play I was bored to tears although I'm a lover of the Bard's plays. Othello is (like Lear) one of Shakespeare's noble simpleton's and it is difficult to sympathise at all with a man who is so easily duped. However the effect of Verdi's masterly score makes the whole thing far more believable plus Iago's atheistic credo, inserted by Boito. There is not a completely satisfactory recording but of the ones I have:

Chung is frenetic (not inappropriate) with Domingo at his peak and Studer as a lovely Desdemona. Whether you like it depends on your opinion of the unItalian Iago of Leiferkus.
Karajan 1 is really first rate apart from Protti's well sung but rather routine Iago.
Karajan 2 is cut (which is madness - why didn't someone stand up to the maestro?) and a compelling but rather quirky performance. Vickers must be heard though. 
Serafin has a superlative Iago (Gobbi) and is worth it for him alone. I don't warm to Rysanek's Desdemona and Serafim runs out of steam a bit in the final act. Vickers is a younger incarnation, made before he had sung the role on stage, but still superb.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Though I love so much of Verdi's oeuvre, and enjoy _all_ his operas, even those of the galley years that Verdi himself disparaged, I think *Otello* and *Falstaff* together form the apex of his career. Were it not for Boito, the *Requiem* might well have been his last work, but we are fortunate indeed that Boito managed to persuade him to come out of retirement. That an octogenarian could write a work like *Falstaff*, which is brimming with vitality and high spirits, is little short of miraculous. Verdi's superb music, coupled with Boito's inspired distillation of Shakespeare, means that, in my opinion, both works transcend their source.

I agree with DavidA that there has never been an entirely successful recording, but there have been many great ones.

Pre LP days there is the live Panizza with Martinelli, Rethberg and Tibbett, a record of three great pre-war singers; then there is Toscanini of course, with Vinay and Valdengo, though I've never taken much to his Desdemona, Herva Nelli.

In the stereo age I think the best ones are:- 
Serafin (my personal favourite) with the young Vickers and Gobbi's inestimable Iago. I don't much like Rysanek, and feel she lets the set down. If only it had been Tebaldi), who is on Karajan I with Del Monaco and Protti. This time it is the Iago who lets the side down. Tebaldi is perhaps the most vocally entitled of all Desdemonas, and this might well be Del Monaco's best studio recording. He is not so refined as either Vickers or Domingo, but Karajan elicits a much more subtle performance from him than we are usually used to, and there is no denying he has exactly the right voice for the role. The excellent Decca analogue sound has a wonderful, natural balance, much better than Karajan's second effort for EMI, which suffers from a heinous cut in the great Act III ensemble (to cut any note of this, one of Verdi's most perfect scores, is surely a case of _lese majeste_). Vickers is now a more experienced Otello, Freni absolutely lovely as Desdemona, but Glossop is a bit anonymous beside them.

Levine has Domingo's first recorded Otello, and, overall, I tend to prefer it to his recording with Chung, though I know mine is a minority view. Studer's is a voice I've never taken to, and Leiferkus, intelligently conceived though his portrayal is, is decidedly un-Italianate. Scotto, for Levine, gives us the most psychologically penetrating study of Desdemona on disc, though not so sweet-toned as Tebaldi, and many others, and Milnes is a powerful Iago.

Both Domingo and Leiferkus can be found on the Covent Garden DVD with Kiri Te Kanawa sounding (and looking) sublime as Desdemona. Seen as well as heard, one is less aware of Leiferkus's un-Italianate timbre, and Domingo is even more moving seen in the flesh. I'm no great fan of Solti in Verdi, but, though I would still prefer Karajan or Serafin, Toscanini or Panizza, he is more sensitive to the lyricism in the score here than elsewhere in Verdi.

I can't comment on the Met performance with Fleming, as I haven't seen it, but at that stage in her career, I would have thought she would be the perfect Desdemona.

No doubt the purists will come down on me for admitting it, but I have a soft spot for Zeffirelli's movie. Yes, the cuts and re-ordering drive me potty, and I could never recommend this to anyone seeking a representative *Otello*, but the film looks magnificent, and Domingo is mesmerisingly brilliant. Ricciarelli is also a huge asset as Desdemona, Diaz no more than an adequate Iago. The score was recorded complete (and issued as such) so why Zeffirelli felt the need to do such a hatchet job with it is beyond me. Even more surprising when it comes from a man of the theatre, who coincidentally, directed my favourite DVD version, the one from the Met, with Vickers at the height of his powers, his pain almost impossible to bear, Scotto thrillingly dramatic as Desdemona and Cornell MacNeil an insidious Iago. This DVD would be my ultimate choice if I were forced to make one.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

GregMitchell said:


> Though I love so much of Verdi's oeuvre, and enjoy _all_ his operas, even those of the galley years that Verdi himself disparaged, I think *Otello* and *Falstaff* together form the apex of his career. Were it not for Boito, the *Requiem* might well have been his last work, but we are fortunate indeed that Boito managed to persuade him to come out of retirement. That an octogenarian could write a work like *Falstaff*, which is brimming with vitality and high spirits, is little short of miraculous. Verdi's superb music, coupled with Boito's inspired distillation of Shakespeare, means that, in my opinion, both works transcend their source.
> 
> I agree with DavidA that there has never been an entirely successful recording, but there have been many great ones.
> 
> ...


:tiphat:

Great post!

This is a 2009 live recording from the Barbican which I love. Presto Classical and concert reviews here.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

sospiro said:


> :tiphat:
> 
> Great post!
> 
> This is a 2009 live recording from the Barbican which I love. Presto Classical and concert reviews here.


Thanks. I'll have to give this one a spin.

It reminds me that I heard Davis conduct a superbly dramatic concert performance at the Barbican back in 1999, again with the LSO. Jose Cura made quite an impression as Otello (what happened to him?). I don't remember the rest of the cast, but a little internet digging revealed that the Iago was Carlos Alvarez, and the Desdemona Andrea Dankova. The name rings no bells with me whatsoever.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I am normally a Zeffirelli fan, glitz, over-the-top and all but I have to say that eliminating the Willow Song (for time's sake???) from the movie version with Domingo/Ricciarelli was tantamount to blasphemy. What must he have been thinking to dismiss a major scene and aria as that?

James McCracken has not yet been mentioned and I think he deserves his place up there as one of the finest Otellos of all time. His death scene is memorable.
And what of Vinay? Another wonderful Moor. Martinelli also was a major contender.
Too bad for us Corelli never finally undertook the role. He started to and was assigned but "stuff happened".
An up and coming winner should likely be Kaufmann and it looks like he is close to there.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> I am normally a Zeffirelli fan, glitz, over-the-top and all but I have to say that eliminating the Willow Song (for time's sake???) from the movie version with Domingo/Ricciarelli was tantamount to blasphemy. What must he have been thinking to dismiss a major scene and aria as that?
> .


I remember and interview at the time where he said the Willow song slowed things down to much and was boring in the Theatre.

Well I would have thought if there's one score so tight it needs no editing, this is the one.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> I am normally a Zeffirelli fan, glitz, over-the-top and all but I have to say that eliminating the Willow Song (for time's sake???) from the movie version with Domingo/Ricciarelli was tantamount to blasphemy. What must he have been thinking to dismiss a major scene and aria as that?


I agree with you. What I find most annoying is that the film would have been amazing if he'd just stuck to what Verdi wrote. It actually makes me quite angry.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

GregMitchell said:


> *I can't comment on the Met performance with Fleming, *as I haven't seen it, but at that stage in her career, I would have thought she would be the perfect Desdemona.
> 
> No doubt the purists will come down on me for admitting it, but I have a soft spot for Zeffirelli's movie. Yes, the cuts and re-ordering drive me potty, and I could never recommend this to anyone seeking a representative *Otello*, but the film looks magnificent, and Domingo is mesmerisingly brilliant. Ricciarelli is also a huge asset as Desdemona, Diaz no more than an adequate Iago. The score was recorded complete (and issued as such) so why Zeffirelli felt the need to do such a hatchet job with it is beyond me. Even more surprising when it comes from a man of the theatre, who coincidentally, directed my favourite DVD version, the one from the Met, with Vickers at the height of his powers, his pain almost impossible to bear, Scotto thrillingly dramatic as Desdemona and Cornell MacNeil an insidious Iago. This DVD would be my ultimate choice if I were forced to make one.


The Met performance is superb with Domingo and Fleming on top form. The one drawback is that James Morris, though he acts well, is decidedly unItalianate as Iago. I agree about the Zeferelli film - very well done (what is there) in spite of being hacked about. Pity about the storm drowning out Verdi's orchestral storm in the beginning though! I think the problem Zefferelli had was that he preferred action to music and hence he cuts the Willow Song.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Master Iago


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

A few observations:

-- One thing I've always liked about Sherrill Milnes' recorded Iago is that he actually makes the character funny in certain moments. By contrast, Sergei Leiferkus' Iago is chillingly evil but has no humor. While this is certainly a valid view, I really appreciate what Milnes brought to the character. 

-- I saw the Zeferelli (sp) OTELLO movie in college (it was actually shown as part of a course on Shakespeare's OTHELLO). As great as it no doubt is, I simply cannot get used to opera movies as opposed to filmed stage productions. I can't pin down exactly why I have this aversion, but think it's partly the lip-synching and partly the realistic settings. 

-- I wouldn't go so far as to say OTELLO is superior to OTHELLO; however, I do think you can argue that Boito made the story more dramatically effective by eliminating the scenes set in Italy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I agree that that _Otello_ is one of the most perfect operas, if we leave out the rather negligible ballet music Verdi added for a performance in Paris (obviously Paris was still requiring ballets in opera, but luckily Verdi wasn't tempted to revise his work the way Wagner was with _Tannhauser_ but merely stuck a few easily omitted numbers into the ceremonies of Act 3).

Many people regard _Otello_ as an improvement on Shakespeare's _Othello_, because it's more concise and because the passionate music makes Otello's gullibility seem more credible (I've always felt this way, and it looks as if DavidA does too). But recently I enountered somewhere (I wish I could recall the source) the opinion that Iago's "Credo," which is not based on the play, is a dramatic weakness in the opera, however effective it might be musically and as an entertaining showpiece for the baritone. I think the objection was that Iago's self-conscious, grandstanding proclamation of a quasi-religious justification for his actions ("I believe in a cruel God...Death is nothingness, Heaven is an old wives' tale") is a Romantic, moralistic pandering to our need to find some rationale for human evil, which ultimately resists our understanding and which Shakespeare accepts unflinchingly as the reality and mystery that it is. Verdi's supercharged musical setting of Iago's words also suggest the sort of wrought-up, theatrical gesture we might associate with the mustache-twisting villains of popular melodrama, rather than the insidious, self-assured sociopath which Iago clearly is, in the opera as well as in Shakespeare (if I'm remembering the play correctly).

If Shakespeare's acceptance of evil as ultimately unexplainable and needing no reason or justification is the traditional, premodern view common to both classical Greek and Christian worldviews, and the nineteenth-century approach to making sense of evil is to resort to pious moralism, the modern view tends to enlist psychology to explain aberrant human behavior. The basic psychological view might be that something has gone wrong in a person's life to corrupt the person's perspective: moral abnormality resulting from emotional/intellectual distortion, or evil as a sickness of the mind. Verdi's and Boito's (the "Credo"was Boito's idea) "modernization" of Iago doesn't go that far, but stops at midpoint by seeking an explanation, but a religious/philosophical one (rather than a psychological/medical one) which would have been more comprehensible from a nineteenth-century perspective. How interesting, then, that Wagner, psychologically prescient as he was, hints at a twentieth-century view of evil in his major villains - Alberich and Klingsor - who have both yearned for acceptance in the "normal" world but have been spurned and relegated to an underworld, where they have acted as "shadows," in Jung's sense, mirroring their operas' protagonists' - Wotan's and Titurel's - weaknesses and hypocrisy.

I have to admit that despite my love and respect for Verdi's _Otello_, despite considering it a musical masterpiece, and despite being deeply moved by the pathos of its final act, something about its dramatic "message" has never quite gelled for me. It's interesting to me to think that this may have to do not only with the amazing gullibility of the hero (which is however not altogether incredible) but with the odd mixture of inexplicable sociopathy and moralistic bluster of its villain. I'd be interested in hearing what others think about this.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I can never begin to explain why I see Iago in a different light from you Woodduck, because I have no talent for expressing myself so beautifully, like you are able to do.

What I believe I saw in Boito's idea of a truly evil person came through for me without the twirling mustache of "the evil one". His Credo explanations may have been written in a religious context, but nevertheless quite true and honest. It's how he really saw life. And to place it in today's medical/psychological terms would seem quite unnecessary if the one playing the role conveys it correctly. 

I believe Boito put the Credo in there for those who might miss the real sociopath lurking beneath Iago's exterior and merely consider him, on the face of it, that mean, jealous person rather than the dangerous "charming" one he actually is. (You know, the kind who to your face acts like your best friend and supporter, while the blood is flowing down your back).

A true Iago should never show a cruel, tough exterior. He would be cool, a pal to everyone, charming and friendly, one who was there to advise and suggest as needed. In short, Mr. Popularity. Unfortunately, too many are tempted to go all out and interpret the role incorrectly in their zealousness to play "the bad guy".

I am beginning to ramble so I will stop now.
I hope I expressed myself sufficiently enough so that you got what I was trying to say.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

nina foresti said:


> I can never begin to explain why I see Iago in a different light from you Woodduck, because I have no talent for expressing myself so beautifully, like you are able to do.
> 
> What I believe I saw in Boito's idea of a truly evil person came through for me without the twirling mustache of "the evil one". His Credo explanations may have been written in a religious context, but nevertheless quite true and honest. It's how he really saw life. And to place it in today's medical/psychological terms would seem quite unnecessary if the one playing the role conveys it correctly.
> 
> ...


You may be right that the "Credo" was intended by Boito to make the dark side of Iago more explicit for audiences. I do think it would be much harder in music than in poetry to express an evil nature in a character who has to act like a nice guy in order to deceive the hero.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Shakespeare always took evil as a part of human nature - as he saw in the world in his time and we see in the world today. He was a great observer and interpreter of human nature. However he does give the villains - i.e. Iago and Roderigo - reason tho hate Othello. Iago hates Othello for promoting a younger man (Cassio) above him, and tells Roderigo that he plans to use Othello for his own advantage. Iago is also angry because he believes, or at least gives the pretence of belief, that Othello slept with his wife Emilia. Iago denounces Cassio as a scholarly tactician with no real battle experience; in contrast, Iago is a battle-tested soldier. The play has already opened with Roderigo, a rich and dissolute gentleman, complaining to Iago, an ensign, that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. He is upset by this development because he loves Desdemona and had asked her father for her hand in marriage. The hatred is fuelled by their prejudice against a white woman marrying a Moor - i.e. racism. 
So the play is a heady mixture of the old prejudices of unrequited love, jealousy and racism. Of course, today it is customary to play down the racist element in Othello - the last performance I saw featured a black Iago, which rather destroys the effect - love it or loathe it - that Shakespeare was trying to produce - the isolated Moor and white plotters. We have to see that Shakespeare was just as racist in Othello as he was antisemitic in The Merchant of Venice. Of course, most of us find the racism and depiction of Othello as a 'savage' distasteful (just as I hope we do his depiction of Shylock) but unfortunately it is there in the play, reflecting prejudices of the day.
Just one more significant point which was brought out by Hugh Quarshie who played Othello in the latest RSC production is that Shakespeare wrote the part for a white man playing a black man, something unacceptable today. To see how Shakespeare might have imagined the part to be played we have to look to actors of the past like Lawrence Olivier, where it is almost a caricature, unacceptable in today's culture.
One thing Verdi's setting does do is to (consciously or unconsciously) play down the racist element - hence the Credo making Iago more obviously evil. A great Iago such as Gobbi, will known how to bring it off. Else Iago just blusters. Verdi's music gives Otello a nobility and makes his downfall as an unhinged psychotic who murders his wife out of jealousy more credible. 
One humorous point: Laurence Olivier saw Domingo in Otello and, in a mock-furious voice, told Franco Zeffirelli: "You realise that Domingo plays Othello as well as I do, and he has that voice!"


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Laurence Olivier saw Domingo in Otello and, in a mock-furious voice, told Franco Zeffirelli: "You realise that Domingo plays Othello as well as I do, and he has that voice!"


I've always loved that remark by Olivier. Domingo certainly did act the role well; when I can see him I don't mind that he doesn't quite have the sort of voice I want to hear in the part. Olivier's own Othello, as captured on film, is a brilliant caricature of an African which distracts as much as it illuminates. I wonder whether Maggie Smith ever whispered to him "Tone it down, Larry!"


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I prefer Un Giorno di Regno myself.
After the initial chorus it's  for me.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I've always loved that remark by Olivier. Domingo certainly did act the role well; when I can see him I don't mind that he doesn't quite have the sort of voice I want to hear in the part. Olivier's own Othello, as captured on film, is a brilliant caricature of an African which distracts as much as it illuminates. I wonder whether Maggie Smith ever whispered to him "Tone it down, Larry!"


Shakespeare would have seen the part as a caricature, which Olivier brings out. The film does not, apparently, reflect the power Olivier brought to the part live on stage. He was never happy with it despite its general acclaim. Christopher Fry said after seeing Olivier on stage: "I knew by the trembling of my body as I left the theatre that I had heard 'the hum of mighty workings.' The rage was so elemental, the pain so private, that it seemed an intrusive n to overhear it."
Olivier was so carried away in the part that on one occasion instead of slapping Maggie Smith in the face he punched her on the jaw knocking her down and leaving the horrified stage hands wondering whether to bring down the curtain. Smith never wholly forgave him for it and they were to act together on only one more occasion. When Derek Granger suggested to her that Olivier was a 'great monstre Sacre' she replied, "Monstre, yes!"
Vickers was another Otello who made his leading ladies fear for their lives by his absorption the n the part.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Shakespeare would have seen the part as a caricature, which Olivier brings out. The film does not, apparently, reflect the power Olivier brought to the part live on stage. He was never happy with it despite its general acclaim. Christopher Fry said after seeing Olivier on stage: "I knew by the trembling of my body as I left the theatre that I had heard 'the hum of mighty workings.' The rage was so elemental, the pain so private, that it seemed an intrusive n to overhear it."
> Olivier was so carried away in the part that on one occasion instead of slapping Maggie Smith in the face he punched her on the jaw knocking her down and leaving the horrified stage hands wondering whether to bring down the curtain. Smith never wholly forgave him for it and they were to act together on only one more occasion. When Derek Granger suggested to her that Olivier was a 'great monstre Sacre' she replied, "Monstre, yes!"
> Vickers was another Otello who made his leading ladies fear for their lives by his absorption the n the part.


I don't know what you mean when you say that Shakespeare would have seen the part as a "caricature." Isn't it a little odd, even contradictory, to give a caricature the role of a tragic hero? I see absolutely nothing resembling caricature in the text of the play.


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## Jeffrey Smith (Jan 2, 2016)

One thing to remember: for the Elizabethans the term Moor could suggest anyone from Africa including the Muslim states which bordered the Mediterranean. Shakespeare was not very specific about Othello's actual origin although there are some lines in the play which evoke the Barbary states. So Othello may have been a black....or a Moslem native of North Africa. Presumably he was a convert to Christianity, baptised at the time he entered Venetian service.
In Shakespeare's day the wars with the Ottoman Empire which are the background of the play were still going strong, and would continue for decades after, which would provide some of the unstated context to how Othello was seen and related to by his native Christian comrades. A modern update could easily draw on the current news about ISIS, the migrants, and the mounting Islam hate in Europe and America.

Of course, how Boito, Verdi, and Europeans c. 1900 saw the character of Otello is not how Shakespeare and the English of his time saw the character of Othello. Is there any evidence to show how Boito and Verdi thought on this point?


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> I can never begin to explain why I see Iago in a different light from you Woodduck, because I have no talent for expressing myself so beautifully, like you are able to do.
> 
> What I believe I saw in Boito's idea of a truly evil person came through for me without the twirling mustache of "the evil one". His Credo explanations may have been written in a religious context, but nevertheless quite true and honest. It's how he really saw life. And to place it in today's medical/psychological terms would seem quite unnecessary if the one playing the role conveys it correctly.
> 
> ...


This is how Verdi's (and Shakespeare's) Iago is usually played, and it makes perfect sense. On the other hand, if you watch that Covent Garden performance with Domingo you'll see that Sergei Leiferkus has an interesting take on the character. He plays Iago as a rather unlikable man who is always brutally honest, at all moments; when he says, "Io non sono che'il critico" ("I am nothing if not a critic") in Act I, he does so with complete seriousness. Because this Iago seems like someone who would always tell unpleasant truths no matter what, it comes as a double shock at the end when Otello finds that his story about Cassio and Desdemona was actually a lie.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> This is how Verdi's (and Shakespeare's) Iago is usually played, and it makes perfect sense. On the other hand, if you watch that Covent Garden performance with Domingo you'll see that Sergei Leiferkus has an interesting take on the character. He plays Iago as a rather unlikable man who is always brutally honest, at all moments; when he says, "Io non sono che'il critico" ("I am nothing if not a critic") in Act I, he does so with complete seriousness. Because this Iago seems like someone who would always tell unpleasant truths no matter what, it comes as a double shock at the end when Otello finds that his story about Cassio and Desdemona was actually a lie.


Spot on :tiphat:


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Pugg said:


> Spot on :tiphat:


Thanks. I always wondered if this interpretation of mine made any sense!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> Thanks. I always wondered if this interpretation of mine made any sense!


Believe me, for me it does :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jeffrey Smith said:


> One thing to remember: for the Elizabethans the term Moor could suggest anyone from Africa including the Muslim states which bordered the Mediterranean. Shakespeare was not very specific about Othello's actual origin although there are some lines in the play which evoke the Barbary states. So Othello may have been a black....or a Moslem native of North Africa. Presumably he was a convert to Christianity, baptised at the time he entered Venetian service.
> In Shakespeare's day the wars with the Ottoman Empire which are the background of the play were still going strong, and would continue for decades after, which would provide some of the unstated context to how Othello was seen and related to by his native Christian comrades. A modern update could easily draw on the current news about ISIS, the migrants, and the mounting Islam hate in Europe and America.
> 
> Of course, how Boito, Verdi, and Europeans c. 1900 saw the character of Otello is not how Shakespeare and the English of his time saw the character of Othello. Is there any evidence to show how Boito and Verdi thought on this point?


http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/...ing_why_shakespeare_made_his_hero_a_moor.html


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know what you mean when you say that Shakespeare would have seen the part as a "caricature." Isn't it a little odd, even contradictory, to give a caricature the role of a tragic hero? I see absolutely nothing resembling caricature in the text of the play.


I should have perhaps used the term 'character acting' - i.e. an Englishman playing how he perceived a 'black' man at the time. But Othello is not just a tragic hero in Shakespeare's eyes. Racism is written into the play whether we like it or not. And it forms part of Othello's disintegration.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/...ing_why_shakespeare_made_his_hero_a_moor.html


Very interesting and illuminating.

It doesn't, of course, tell us much about how Verdi and Boito viewed the character of Othello or how the question of race would be viewed through nineteenth century Italian eyes.


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2016)

nina foresti said:


> I can never begin to explain why I see Iago in a different light from you Woodduck, because I have no talent for expressing myself so beautifully, like you are able to do.
> 
> What I believe I saw in Boito's idea of a truly evil person came through for me without the twirling mustache of "the evil one". His Credo explanations may have been written in a religious context, but nevertheless quite true and honest. It's how he really saw life. And to place it in today's medical/psychological terms would seem quite unnecessary if the one playing the role conveys it correctly.
> 
> ...


The credo is there because it makes for a great aria/recitative! 
It's operatic.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Though admittedly not everyone's favourite, this opera is Verdi's greatest achievement.

My opinion and 5 favourite parts amongst many:
Act I. The opening through to Esultate. (6 mins) The most dramatic opening in all opera.
Act II. Quartet. That forlorn musical motif in the outro shows how Verdi uses the music to comment on the drama. It flows so expertly into the next scene. Dare I say Wagnarian?
Act II. Otello and Iago closing duet. There are many scenes in operas that can cause one to shed a tear, this makes me tremble. Opera's most manly scene.
Act III. A Terra. A glorious ensemble, with Desdemona's voice rising about it all.
Act IV. Ave Maria. An exquisite tune. (But not so much the Willow Song for me.)


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I agree that it is a perfect opera and Verdi's greatest.

It's not my favourite, though. I prefer Traviata, Don Carlo and Macbeth, although perhaps with the exception of Traviata none of those are perfect works.

N.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I wish I could get past my impasse over my dislike of jealousy. My reaction would always be "Let's have a thr** way" If I could do so perhaps I could enjoy the greatness. I do love the Willow.. Ave Maria scene, especially on Sutherland's Art of the Prima Donna( where she displayed a gorgeous lower register... thank you).


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I love the Willow Song too, finding it absolutely haunting, and a perfect way for Verdi to start building up the tension in the last act. Favourite versions for me are Tebaldi, Scotto, Schwarzkopf (in unexpected territory, but fully alive to its shifting moods) and Callas, despite the tattered voice at this stage in her career. The scene is not especially taxing and doesn't take the soprano above top A, and Callas, like Schwarzkopf, is, as ever, the mistress of mood.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The Conte said:


> I agree that it is a perfect opera and *Verdi's greatest.*
> 
> It's not my favourite, though. I prefer Traviata, Don Carlo and Macbeth, although perhaps with the exception of Traviata none of those are perfect works.
> 
> N.


I'd put Falstaff even higher.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

DoReFaMi said:


> The credo is there because it makes for a great aria/recitative!
> It's operatic.


The Credo is there because Boito cut Act 1 from Shakespeare's play which explain's Iago's hatred of Othello.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I'd put Falstaff even higher.


It's a tricky one. Both operas are perfect, IMO. Impossible to choose between tragedy and comedy, I'd make them equal.


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## GBZ (Jan 13, 2016)

DoReFaMi said:


> Ok, I think Otello is a perfect Opera, and the greatest Verdi creation.


I think _Aida_ is Verdi's greatest work. Most technically perfect and most profound.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Don Fatale said:


> Though admittedly not everyone's favourite, this opera is Verdi's greatest achievement.
> 
> My opinion and 5 favourite parts amongst many:
> Act I. The opening through to Esultate. (6 mins) The most dramatic opening in all opera.
> ...


My favorite parts are the act one love duet - uniquely restrained among operatic love scenes and unlike anything else in Verdi - and Otello's monologue "Dio mi potevi scagliar." I know of nothing more heartrending in all music.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

GBZ said:


> I think _Aida_ is Verdi's greatest work. Most technically perfect and most profound.


That's interesting. I think AIDA is great (not Verdi's greatest perhaps, but great), yet it seems not to be a particularly well-liked opera on this forum.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

My favorites (oh this is impossible)...I guess I will have to go with the "Esultate" first, "dio mi potevi scaliar", "niun mi tema", "Credo" and the "Willow Song/Ave Maria."
I guess that pretty much says the entire opera right there, eh?


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## GBZ (Jan 13, 2016)

Bellinilover said:


> That's interesting. I think AIDA is great (not Verdi's greatest perhaps, but great), yet it seems not to be a particularly well-liked opera on this forum.


Yup, that has also been my experience on every forum.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

GBZ said:


> I think _Aida_ is Verdi's greatest work. Most technically perfect and most profound.


I could listen to a good performance of Aida every week. The music is both phenomenally beautiful plus along with the Requiem the most thrilling Verdi ever wrote.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

^^^^
I truly love Don Carlos, Aida & Falstaff (all ahead of his famous mid 3) but nothing will hit you as hard as a top-notch live performance of Otello.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> That's interesting. I think AIDA is great (not Verdi's greatest perhaps, but great), yet it seems not to be a particularly well-liked opera on this forum.


I like it, especially the Muti one.
The very best cast there was and ever will be:tiphat:


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> That's interesting. I think AIDA is great (not Verdi's greatest perhaps, but great), yet it seems not to be a particularly well-liked opera on this forum.


Yes. It's odd, but I admire Aida rather than love it. I'm not sure why; musically splendid, I do find the characters seem more like archetypes than real people. That said, I keep getting new recordings, maybe in an attempt to love it a little more.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bellinilover said:


> That's interesting. I think AIDA is great (not Verdi's greatest perhaps, but great), yet it seems not to be a particularly well-liked opera on this forum.


If you like Verdi I can't see what there is not to like in Aida. A magnificent score. Just listen to the miraculous sounds Karajan draws from the VPO in his Decca set.


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

GregMitchell said:


> Yes. It's odd, but I admire Aida rather than love it. I'm not sure why; musically splendid, I do find the characters seem more like archetypes than real people. That said, I keep getting new recordings, maybe in an attempt to love it a little more.


I agree with you. I like the music far more than I like the characters.

Anyways, as for Otello, my favorite parts of it are, in this order:
Willow Song...Ave Maria
Si, pel ciel (duet at end of Act II)
Una vela .... Esultate! (Openning Scene)
Iago's Credo
Dio mi potevi scagliar


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## Jeffrey Smith (Jan 2, 2016)

GregMitchell said:


> Yes. It's odd, but I admire Aida rather than love it. I'm not sure why; musically splendid, I do find the characters seem more like archetypes than real people. That said, I keep getting new recordings, maybe in an attempt to love it a little more.


Same here. Perhaps because I was overexposed to it in my younger days. (Same with Traviata and Rigoletto.)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Jeffrey Smith said:


> Same here. Perhaps because I was overexposed to it in my younger days. (Same with Traviata and Rigoletto.)


I don't feel the same way about Traviata and Rigoletto. They never fail to move me, and I find the characters much more than archetypes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I don't feel the same way about Traviata and Rigoletto. They never fail to move me, and I find the characters much more than archetypes.


The scenic epic wasn't Verdi's forte. Even in the operas set amid momentous political forces, it's the individual character portraits that inspired his greatest music and which we remember. I think he got a little distracted by a need to make _Aida_ impressive and atmospheric, which it certainly is, but in a way that made his characters seem like pawns in the shadow of the pyramids.

Wagner could do this sort of thing by making his settings part of the personalities of his characters: the stormy ocean embodies the dour character of the Dutchman, the Venusberg is part of Tannhauser's impulsive nature, the lonely coast of Kareol part of Tristan's desolate soul. Puccini, I think, tried that approach with characters like Butterfly, Minnie, and Turandot, whose personalities (if that charmer Turandot can be said to have a personality :lol seem like expressions of their culture and environment.

Verdi was more of a classic humanist in his approach, focusing on traits of character and emotions which transcend time and place, and somehow that sits oddly with the exoticism of the ancient Nile. Perhaps, too, it's just that the characters in _Aida_ don't really do anything or represent anything, but are all basically just victims of circumstances playing out a little soap opera surrounded by postcard scenery. Stripped of Verdi's music, the drama is pretty commonplace and kitschy. It's amazing what he was able to make of it, but in my view he didn't create in it the kind of incisive portrayals of human nature that make the stories of Violetta, Rigoletto, Lady Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff such pinnacles of musical drama.


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2016)

Yesterday, I attended the first performance of Otello from the Opera de Montreal, with Kristian Benedikt as Otello, Hiromi Omura as Desdemona, / Aris Argiris as Iago, and Antoine Bélanger as Cassio. 

It's a tough opera to pull off but they did well overall, in spite of an uneven Otello. 

I must say I love the death scene too. Especially when it reaches its climax "Pensai ai tuoi pecati... mio pecato e l'amor!"


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## Antony (Nov 4, 2013)

DoReFaMi said:


> Yesterday, I attended the first performance of Otello from the Opera de Montreal, with Kristian Benedikt as Otello, Hiromi Omura as Desdemona, / Aris Argiris as Iago, and Antoine Bélanger as Cassio.
> 
> It's a tough opera to pull off but they did well overall, in spite of an uneven Otello.
> 
> I must say I love the death scene too. Especially when it reaches its climax "Pensai ai tuoi pecati... mio pecato e l'amor!"


I was there too 

The dress is really beautiful but the decor is really cheap. I must say the image projected the waves at the opening is so confusing. It masked completely the choir. The same when the image projected the facade of the marbled column at St Marco Piazza of Venice. There is nothing ...Art but cheap and confusing. It's such a contrast with beautiful clothes. Take out the projected image and put in there some real decors and everything is perfect. Don't make cheap thing when you have such beautiful costumes. It's really a waste.

For the roles : This Otello is at best a dwarf , at worse an animal or a pig.... The first love duet at the end of first act is OK but then when he got enraged, he jumped on Desdemona at the stairs, God, I thought he was going to ...rape her. Such a beast! But he made me laugh a lot when he couldn't run after Desdemona. He really couldn't catch her, could he? poor Otello. And then he got so much rage, he started to stuff ..herbs in his mouth...like a horse - At that moment, he made me remember Caligulla named a horse a Consul - Otello, Otello, I really wonder imbecile and stupid like you are, how could you win battles??? Anyway, This Otello is a disaster. I see nothing of Jealousy, Despair, Darkness ... He reflected nothing of that. Nothing but a brute...really!

Desdemona is such a sweetheart...(it makes me wonder how could she marry such a ...brute) The first love duet at the end of the first act is ok. The jealousy duet is fine but Otello's voice reflects not a jealousy neither a threat. It supposed to be a sweet love duet veiled by jealousy and threat. And then when she was ridiculed by Otello at the grand Reception, It was clearly a menace on her life...and not a veiled threat as it supposed to be. Her Ave Maria is marvelous...sweet and anguished. All in all, Desdemona played well her role, Bravo!

Iago is the winner here. Somber, subtil and his voice supports his role. The only time he made me laugh is when he sings his solo aria in the second Act ...Credo in un Dio .... he points his finger in the sky and claim - 
Dalla viltà d'un germe
o d'un atomo vile son nato.
Son scellerato perchè son uomo (because I am a man !!!!!)

A little weak when he convinced Ottelo that Cassio flirted Desdemona and he (Iago) had the proof ( the hankerchief ) . I mean, how can one believe his wife cheat on him without seeing any concrete proof ? his voice is not very convincing here. But next to Otello, he is clearly the winner.

Cassio is ok. Not great but fine. He played his role.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> *The scenic epic wasn't Verdi's forte. *Even in the operas set amid momentous political forces, it's the individual character portraits that inspired his greatest music and which we remember. I think he got a little distracted by a need to make _Aida_ impressive and atmospheric, which it certainly is, but in a way that made his characters seem like pawns in the shadow of the pyramids.
> 
> *Wagner could do this sort of thing by making his settings part of the personalities of his characters*: the stormy ocean embodies the dour character of the Dutchman, the Venusberg is part of Tannhauser's impulsive nature, the lonely coast of Kareol part of Tristan's desolate soul. Puccini, I think, tried that approach with characters like Butterfly, Minnie, and Turandot, whose personalities (if that charmer Turandot can be said to have a personality :lol seem like expressions of their culture and environment.
> 
> Verdi was more of a classic humanist in his approach, focusing on traits of character and emotions which transcend time and place, and somehow that sits oddly with the exoticism of the ancient Nile. Perhaps, too, it's just that the characters in _Aida_ don't really do anything or represent anything, but are all basically just victims of circumstances playing out a little soap opera surrounded by postcard scenery. *Stripped of Verdi's music, the drama is pretty commonplace and kitschy.* It's amazing what he was able to make of it, but in my view he didn't create in it the kind of incisive portrayals of human nature that make the stories of Violetta, Rigoletto, Lady Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff such pinnacles of musical drama.


While agreeing that 'it's the individual character portraits that inspired his greatest music and which we remember', I cannot see this applies any the less to Aida. The anguish of Aida as Radames is urged to return in victory, the Nile scene with its great drama and the anguish of Amnesia caught between the man she loves and her Ethiopian rival. I agree that, 'Stripped of Verdi's music, the drama is pretty commonplace and kitschy' but that applies to most opera outside of great librettists like Boito or da Ponte. As for spectacle, Verdi actually does it pretty well, the music in (e.g.) the triumphal scene matching what is going on on the stage perfectly. I just cannot see your point that Wagner did it better although that is probably down to our personal preferences. To me Wagner's 'epic' parts are better staged in the mind - the stage action often seems a let down when you actually see it, probably due to Wagner's unrealistic stage demands. But that discussion belongs to another thread so I won't pursue it here.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

I believe that the characters in _Aida_ take second place to the fanfare. Unlike in _Don Carlo_ where one sees how Verdi fleshed out his characters and makes you understand how and why they feel and react as they do, I felt the loss of anything more than on-the-surface characterizations in the roles in Aida, whereas, the reactions by_ Otello's _characters are well drawn so that we are able to have empathy for them and understand why they do what they do. Even Iago's portrait allows us to recognize a sick psychopath thanks to the Credo.

Another example is in _Turandot_ where, again, the characters are not fleshed out and the extravaganza takes first place. 
A blind father who has just lost his trustworthy companion has a son who, instead of giving up everything in order to protect his newly found-again father, suggests with anger to Turandot to look at what she has wrought -- that she was responsible for 2 deaths -- and in the next breath extols his love for her. 
In order to accept that dichotomy we need to be able to see deeper into the minds of the characters. Admittedly, we do get some background into why Turandot acts the way she does but that's about it. 
So who can "feel" for characters like that without having some kind of history and background?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I too find the characters in Aida less finely drawn, less complex, than those in, say, Don Carlo and Otello, or Falstaff for that matter. I wonder how much this has to do with the original source material, Don Carlo based on Schiller and Otello and Falstaff based on Shakespeare. Aida does not have its roots in a stage play, novel or even actual events. The scenario was dreamed up for the occasion, the opening of the Khedevial Opera House in Cairo. As such, the characters have always seemed to me more like representations of certain emotions than real people. The opera rarely moves me, though the music is magnificent. By contrast, I find the plights of Otello, of Violetta, of Simon Boccanegra much more heart rending. The characters in Don Carlo, too, possibly excepting the noble Posa, have a complexity and depth lacking in those in Aida.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

DoReFaMi said:


> Ok, I think Otello is a perfect Opera, and the greatest Verdi creation. I've been listening to it a lot, and I'm maybe on my 10th listening. I keep noticing so many details at each listening.
> F
> or example, I never noticed before that the prelude of the third act starts with a gloomy motif that is based on the music we hear when Iago talks about jealousy being a livid monster (hydra) (Temete, signor, la celosia! È un'idra fosca, livid)
> 
> ...


Agreed it is Verdi's best opera - a remarkable work.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

DavidA said:


> If you like Verdi I can't see what there is not to like in Aida. A magnificent score. Just listen to the miraculous sounds Karajan draws from the VPO in his Decca set.


I dont like Aida! It's boring!
I like all the other middle period Verdi - just not Aida!


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

stomanek said:


> I dont like Aida! It's boring!
> I like all the other middle period Verdi - just not Aida!


It starts off well but goes downhill after Celeste Aïda: it's the opera's only good aria (indeed one of the handful of greatest heroic tenor showpieces ever written) and what follows is largely an anticlimax, although the Radames-Aida duets are good. Even the best Radames in the world can't save us from the interminable Aïda-Amneris scene though. 

Back on topic,sort of- maybe Amonasro is similar to Iago in that it takes a singing actor of genius to make the character three dimensional.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> It starts off well but goes downhill after Celeste Aïda: it's the opera's only good aria (indeed one of the handful of greatest heroic tenor showpieces ever written) and what follows is largely an anticlimax, although the Radames-Aida duets are good. Even the best Radames in the world can't save us from the interminable Aïda-Amneris scene though.
> 
> Back on topic,sort of- maybe Amonasro is similar to Iago in that it takes a singing actor of genius to make the character three dimensional.


Well, though, *Aida* may not be my favourite Verdi opera, I wouldn't for one moment want to suggest that I find it boring. Far from it.

Downhill after _Celeste Aida_? And this from someone who professes a love for the dull, formulaic operas of Meyerbeer, who never in his whole career came up with anything within a mile of the melodic fecundity, orchestral ingenuity and sheer originality of *Aida*.

It may not move me in the same way some of his other operas do, but I still rate it a masterpiece.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Well, though, *Aida* may not be my favourite Verdi opera, I wouldn't for one moment want to suggest that I find it boring. Far from it.
> 
> Downhill after _Celeste Aida_? And this from someone who professes a love for the dull, formulaic operas of Meyerbeer, who never in his whole career came up with anything within a mile of the melodic fecundity, orchestral ingenuity and sheer originality of *Aida*.
> 
> It may not move me in the same way some of his other operas do, but I still rate it a masterpiece.


Meyerbeer was a great innovator, wasn't he? And even his detractors must admit that he wrote beautiful melodies. If there were singers around to do justice to either composer, I would rather hear revivals of Meyerbeer's French operas (or those of any one of a number of underrated, seldom heard composers) than of Verdi's also-rans (not that Aïda is usually classed among those).


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> Well, though, *Aida* may not be my favourite Verdi opera, I wouldn't for one moment want to suggest that I find it boring. Far from it.
> 
> Downhill after _Celeste Aida_? *And this from someone who professes a love for the dull, formulaic operas *of Meyerbeer, who never in his whole career came up with anything within a mile of the melodic fecundity, orchestral ingenuity and sheer originality of *Aida*.
> 
> It may not move me in the same way some of his other operas do, but I still rate it a masterpiece.


I may add, that was rather rude.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> Meyerbeer was a great innovator, wasn't he? And even his detractors must admit that he wrote beautiful melodies.


I'm not sure that he was a great innovator, though. He basically gave the Paris public what they wanted, which, above all, was spectacle. I don't deny he wrote some beautiful melodies, but some good melodies do not a great opera make. Nothing in his work is on the level of anything Verdi wrote post *Rigoletto*, possibly excepting Verdi's attempt at a Meyerbeerian opera *Les Vepres Siciliennes *.

One might argue that Verdi wasn't a great innovator either, that his progress from talented composer to operatic giant was gradual, slow and progressive. Certainly he was not an innovator in the sense Wagner was, or Berlioz before him, one of the great originals of the nineteenth century. But Verdi was a genius and a giant in the operatic world, and there is a good reason his works have survived whilst those of Meyerbeer are only occasionally revived.

No accounting for taste of course, but, unlike you, I would rather hear any one Verdi's "galley years" operas than sit through the whole of one of Meyerbeer's dinosaurs, though I will admit to enjoying a few individual scenes and arias.

You suggest that part of the problem with Meyerbeer is that there aren't singers around to do his music justice. Surely one could say the same for the music of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, and though we don't hear as much of them now as we did when we had singers of the calibre of Callas, Sutherland, Caballe, Sills, Gencer et al performing them, their works, beyond the obviously popular ones like *Il Barbiere di Siviglia*, *Lucia di Lammermoor* and *Don Pasquale*, still have a peripheral hold on the repertoire that Meyerbeer has never had.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> I may add, that was rather rude.


Not my intention at all. Apologies.


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