As in Wagner, the orchestra is crucial to the
drama, illuminating and shading what is
portrayed onstage, but the Verdian gift of
melody is always present. “For me Otello is
one of the best examples of balance between
the dramatic and the intimate,” says
French conductor Bertrand de Billy, who
will make his Chicago debut conducting
Lyric’s performances. “At the beginning,
with the chorus onstage, it’s absolutely
crazy. Verdi wrote fortissimo, tutta forza. It’s
like a big explosion, but you still have to
hear what happens onstage! In Act Three
you have the Otello-Desdemona duet with
their confrontation, and then Otello’s aria.
In a way, Otello is the most complete of all
operas, and the challenge in conducting
it is to prepare it properly, so you can stay
very deeply inside it as it moves from
the dramatic to the very intimate.”
Lyric’s production by Sir Peter
Hall opened the 2001-02 season. This
revival is directed by Ashley Dean
in his Lyric debut, with Iago sung by
German bass-baritone Falk Struckmann
(
who triumphed with Botha and Renée
Fleming in this opera last fall at the
Met) and the important supporting role
of Cassio portrayed by Italian tenor
Antonio Poli in his American debut.
In March of 1884, Giuseppe Verdi began
composing Otello. His previous opera,
Aida, premiered 13 years earlier and in the
interim he’d composed no stage works.
Otello’s librettist, Arrigo Boito, 29 years
younger, was a composer in his own right,
having written the well-received Mefistofele
in 1867. A journalist and recognized poet,
Boito had also furnished the libretto for
Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Already in 1881,
when Verdi had him revise the libretto of
Simon Boccanegra, Verdi found in Boito a
true collaborator – a man of letters with
immense musical knowledge who also
understood opera’s theatrical possibilities.
“
Verdi would spend months going
over the libretto,” says Botha, “looking
for just the right meaning in the text.
If he wasn’t happy, he’d send it back to
Boito, who would rewrite the whole thing.
If you compare the Otello libretto with
Shakespeare’s Othello, you realize that
Boito really captures the spirit and nuance
of the Shakespeare play. It’s amazing that
Boito was able to put it in a nutshell.”
An Otello performance generally clocks
in at two-and-a-half hours. But within
that short space of time, the audience is
taken on a journey that traverses human
emotion from the heights of love and
triumph to the depths of despair. The
choice of this particular Shakespeare
play for the operatic stage was inspired.
It’s streamlined Shakespeare, with no
confusing subplots and no episodes
that detract from the central action.
As George Bernard Shaw pointed out,
“
Instead of Otello being an Italian opera
written in the style of Shakespeare,
Othello is a play written by Shakespeare
in the style of an Italian opera.”
The play opens in Venice, where Iago
reveals his hatred of Othello and plans to
destroy him. Desdemona’s father finds that
his daughter has eloped with the Moor and
protests to his colleagues in the Venetian
senate. Othello and Desdemona are
summoned before them to justify their love.
They’re soon dispatched to colonial Cyprus,
where Othello is to combat the Turkish
threat and serve as governor. That’s where
Verdi and Boito chose to begin the opera.
Heroes are never interesting if they’re
saints; in fact, the more flawed, the more
appealing. “Otello is an insecure person,”
says Botha. “There are people like that
–
extremely good at one thing while the
rest of their life is a mess. Otello is one
of those people – he’s extremely good at
fighting wars for the Venetians, but he finds
love and goes off the rails completely.”
Those insecurities are played on by
the über-villainous Iago, who’s obsessed
with control and power. For a time,
Verdi considered actually naming the
opera Iago. He didn’t, but he assigned
the character one of the most complex
roles in the baritone repertoire.
Otello’s beloved Desdemona is his polar
opposite. “Otello is very complex and
needs someone uncomplicated,” Martínez
says. “Desdemona’s strength is in her
love and devotion. She’s Otello’s fountain
of hope, his grounding energy, and his
muse. Otello derives great inspiration
from her. What happens is a tragedy, and
all because of a misunderstanding.”
What happens is that Iago, Otello’s
ensign, plants in Otello the seed of
doubt about Desdemona’s fidelity. From
there, Otello descends into a sea of hate
and jealousy. “You really have to pace
yourself because the jealousy and hate
are so real,” says Botha. “If you get too
much into the emotions, you go out of
control. That’s the danger of this role.”
When he was only 20, Boito had written
the verses for Verdi’s “Hymn of Nations.”
But a year later in 1863 at a reception for the
composer/conductor Franco Faccio (who
later conducted Otello’s world premiere
at La Scala), Boito made a brief speech
about the current state of Italian music.
The speech was soon quoted in the Italian
press: “Perhaps the man is already born
who will restore art, in its purity, on the
altar now defiled like the wall of a brothel.”
Verdi, an Italian composer with many
triumphantly successful operas to his
credit, read a newspaper account of what
was said and was deeply insulted. The
last librettist he would ever consider was
Arrigo Boito! But eventually the appeal of
the yet-to-be composed Otello drew Verdi
in, and on November 18, 1879, he accepted
Boito’s finished libretto. He kept it next to
his bed for almost five years, and at the age
of 70 started work on this extraordinarily
dramatic yet intimate masterpiece.
“
It’s haunting and it always stays
with you,” says Botha. “There’s
a little of Otello in all of us.”
Revival generously made possible by
Mr. & Mrs. Dietrich M. Gross,
an Anonymous Donor, the Abbott
Fund, JPMorgan Chase & Co.,
and the Mazza Foundation.
D i s cov e r y S e r i e s :
Panelists include:
Johan Botha and
Bertrand de Billy
Weds., Oct. 2 at 6pm
Civic Opera House –
20
N. Wacker Drive
312-332-2244
ext. 5600 for tickets
“
It shows us the
power that love
has in our lives.”
Ken Howard (Metropolitan Opera)
7
