Verdi's Otello
Verdi's Otello
The Gramophone Choice
Plácido Domingo (ten) Otello Cheryl Studer (sop) Desdemona Sergei Leiferkus (bar) Iago Ramón Vargas (ten) Cassio Michael Schade (ten) Roderigo Denyce Graves (mez) Emilia Ildebrando d’Arcangelo (bass) Lodovico Giacomo Prestia (bass) Montano Philippe Duminy (bass) Herald Hauts-de-Seine Maîtrise; Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra-Bastille, Paris / Myung-Whun Chung
DG 439 805-2GH2 (132‘ · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
Just as Othello is a difficult play to bring off in the theatre, so Otello is a difficult opera to bring off out of it. For some years, Domingo was, onstage, the greatest Otello of the age. On record, though, he has had less success. Leiferkus and Domingo have worked closely together in the theatre; and it shows in scene after scene – nowhere more so than in the crucial sequence in Act 2 where Otello so rapidly ingests Iago’s lethal poison. By bringing into the recording studio the feel and experience of a stage performance – meticulous study subtly modified by the improvised charge of the moment – both singers help defy the jinx that so often afflicts Otello on record. The skill of Leiferkus’s performance is rooted in voice and technique: clear diction, a very disciplined rhythmic sense and a mastery of all ornament down to the most mordant of mordents. Above all, he’s always there (usually stage right in this recording), steely-voiced, rabbiting on obsessively. We even hear his crucial interventions in the great Act 3 concertato.
Domingo is in superb voice; the sound seems golden as never before. Yet at the same time, it’s a voice that’s being more astutely deployed. To take that cruellest of all challenges to a studio-bound Otello, the great Act 3 soliloquy ‘Dio! mi potevi’, Domingo’s performance is now simpler, more inward, more intense. It helps that his voice has darkened, winning back some of its russet baritonal colourings.
Chung’s conducting is almost disarmingly vital. Verdi’s scoring is more Gallic than Germanic. The score sounds very brilliant in the hands of the excellent Opéra-Bastille orchestra, and, in Act 4, very beautiful. Maybe Chung is wary of the emotional depths and, occasionally, the rhythmic infrastructure is muddled and unclear. And yet, the freshness is all gain. He’s already a master of the big ensemble and the line of an act. Tension rarely slackens. On the rare occasions when it does, the mixing and matching of takes is probably to blame.
Studer’s is a carefully drawn portrait of a chaste and sober-suited lady. Perhaps Verdi had a sweeter-voiced singer in mind for this paragon of ‘goodness, resignation, and self-sacrifice’ (Verdi’s words, not Shakespeare’s). Studer’s oboe tones keep us at a certain distance, yet you’ll look in vain for a better Desdemona. What’s more, Studer is a singer who can single-mindedly focus the drama afresh, as she does more than once in Act 3.
DG’s recording is clear and unfussy and satisfyingly varied; Studer, in particular, is much helped by the beautifully open acoustic the engineers provide for the closing act. This is undoubtedly the best Otello on record since the early 1960s. It also happens to be the first time on disc that a great Otello at the height of his powers has been successfully caught in the context of a recording that can itself be generally considered worthy of the event, musically and technically.
Additional Recommendations
Simon O’Neill (ten) Otello Anne Schwanewilms (sop) Desdemona Gerald Finley (bar) Iago Allan Clayton (ten) Cassio Ben Johnson (ten) Roderigo Eufemia Tufano (mez) Emilia Alexander Tsymbalyuk (bass) Lodovico Matthew Rose (bass) Montano Lukas Jakobski (bass) Herald London Symphony Chorus; London Symphony Orchestra / Sir Colin Davis
LSO Live LSO 0700 (131’ · DDD · S/T/t) Buy from Amazon
Colin Davis (like Toscanini in this opera) follows Verdi without ‘retiring ebb’ and keeps the opera headed ‘due on’ till journey’s end in the dark and stillness of Desdemona’s chamber. It is done largely by the maintenance of a firm beat, rarely giving way, whether to accommodate singers, tradition or personal whim. It would be a coarse reduction of finely balanced considerations to say that this is a performance of the head, not of the heart, but equally it rarely moves one. And this was not because of a felt lack of commitment on the part of any of the performers. Soloists, chorus and orchestra are well keyed up to let no detail slip and to make all tell in the re‑creation of a supreme masterpiece.
Of the three main principals, it is tempting to say that the Iago (as so often in performances of the play) is the dominant figure. Gerald Finley gives a masterly account of the part, his voice seemingly transfigured by the Italian music and language. He is not transparently devilish in characterisation, but neither should he be, and his singing – firm and resonant – is scarcely to be bettered on record. Anne Schwanewilms is well cast, with head-notes in the German tradition. Only a few notes of doubtful intonation limit her complete success. New Zealander Simon O’Neill is an unusual Otello in that he is so unequivocally a tenor, with no hint of the baritone in his timbre. His voice has a ring to it and his expressiveness, if not yet quite personal enough to be memorable, appears to be directed by feeling and understanding.
The LSO has much to be proud of. Its chorus is exceptionally precise and expressive; the playing is alert and sensitive to drama and text. The various elements (including special effects such as the offstage trumpets in Act 3) are judiciously balanced. And a great conductor adds a great work to his discography.
Giovanni Martinelli (ten) Otello Elisabeth Rethberg (sop) Desdemona Lawrence Tibbett (bar) Iago Nicholas Massue (ten) Cassio Giovanni Paltrinieri (ten) Roderigo Thelma Votipka (mez) Emilia Nicola Moscona (bass) Lodovico George Cehanovsky (bass) Montano Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, New York / Ettore Panizza
Naxos Historical mono 8 111018/9 (150’ · ADD) Recorded live 1938. Buy from Amazon
Not tall or ideally loud enough, his voice past its prime when (at over 50) he took the role into his repertoire, Giovanni Martinelli’s Otello was a somewhat handicapped creation. He nevertheless wrung the heart, as Olin Downes (New York Times) put it, by conviction, subtlety and pathos: ‘Mr Martinelli was Otello, in facial play and tragic bearing, the suggestion of great uncontrollable force and agony – a figure which never failed to evoke admiration and pity.’
On records he does more: almost every phrase comes to take the impress of his voice and style. The taut concentration of tone matches the emotional intensity; at every point a close and receptive study of the score has yielded its reward. Certainly there are things his voice would not do, but it was still an impressive instrument. At its best, as in the monologue, Martinelli’s Otello remains finest of all.
The recording was pirated from radio and its transfer now is a triumph of Ward Marston’s skill and hard work. He explains in a producer’s note that the originals were not available for him to work on, but he has cleaned and restored so that the performance emerges more vividly than ever before. And what a performance!
The conductor Panizza was Toscanini’s deputy in earlier years, and something of the master’s energy is felt, in company with more flexibility and willingness to accommodate his singers. In Act 1 especially he makes frightening demands upon orchestra and chorus who, it must be said, meet them dauntlessly.
The recording, which places everything in such a bright light, is less than kind to Elisabeth Rethberg. Until recently hers had been a voice of special and most beautiful quality; but too many Aidas seem to have left their mark and the close recording catches an untoward hardness, though there is no mistaking the stylishness and a high degree of surviving mastery.
Tibbett’s Iago is superbly caught, the best account of the role on records, not forgetting Gobbi. It is a mercurial portrayal, now genial, now ironic or insinuative, nakedly malignant. Like Martinelli, his response to every phrase is specific and vivid; and his voice resonates richly. It was for him the recording was made. Anyway, he deserves our gratitude twice over – for his own magnificent performance and for this inestimable gift to posterity.
DVD Recommendation
Plácido Domingo (ten) Otello Barbara Frittoli (sop) Desdemona Leo Nucci (bar) Iago Cesare Catani (ten) Cassio Antonello Ceron (ten) Roderigo Rossana Rinaldi (mez) Emilia Giovanni Battista Parodi (bass) Lodovico Cesare Lana (bass) Montano Ernesto Panariello (bass) Herald Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory Children’s Choir, Milan; La Scala Children’s Choir, Chorus and Orchestra, Milan / Riccardo Muti
Stage director Graham Vick
Video director Carlo Battistoni
ArtHaus Musik DVD 107 090 (140‘ · NTSC · 16:9 · PCM stereo & DTS 5.1 · 0 · s) Recorded live 2001. Buy from Amazon
This is one of Graham Vick’s most intelligent, detailed and involving productions housed in Ezio Frigero’s superbly crafted and atmospheric set and clothed by Franca Squarciapino’s traditional, beautifully wrought costumes. Here’s proof, if proof were needed, that setting an opera in its period still works best provided you have such sensitive hands in control.
The thoughtful, often revelatory handling of the principals often lends a new dimension to the work, especially with such eloquent singing actors as Plácido Domingo and Barbara Frittoli; remarkable is the strength of passion engendered by the fated lovers – blissful in Act 1, desperately tormented in Act 3.
At this late stage in his career Domingo was able to compensate for a voice that doesn’t always obey his exemplary instincts with a moving portrayal of the Moor. His projection of his own near-disbelief in his agony and jealousy in Act 3, and again before the murder, is deeply affecting. So are Frittoli’s facial expressions and body language, yielding and erotic in Act 1, making her Act 3 and final disillusion that much more terrifying to behold. Domingo sings with even more variety of dynamic and timbre than before. His pent-up fury in the big ensemble is truly frightening. Frittoli sings with many shades of tone and exquisite phrasing throughout, not least in her Act 4 solos, which she enacts with searing emotion. Leo Nucci’s penny-plain, dully sung Iago isn’t in the same league, and the young tenor taking Cassio lacks the requisite sweetness in the voice. The Emilia is admirable, as are the two basses. Muti leads the drama to its dreadful conclusion with his customary brio and care for incidentals. The video direction and the sound picture leave nothing to be desired.
