Program booklet »Otello«

GIUSEPPE VERDI

OTELLO

CONTENTS

P.

4

SYNOPSIS P.

8

THE MOST DANGEROUS HUMAN EMOTION INTERVIEW WITH ADRIAN NOBLE P.

14

EXILES VERSUS LOCALS INTERVIEW WITH DICK BIRD P.

18

WHEN ANTAGONISTS BECOME PARTNERS ANDREAS LÁNG

P.

20

OTHELLO AND OTELLO ADRIAN MOURBY P.

26

LA MORTE È IL NULLA KONRAD PAUL LIESSMANN P.

32

A PERENNIAL FAVOURITE IN THE REPERTOIRE ANDREAS LÁNG P.

36

IMPRINT

GIUSEPPE VERDI

OTELLO DRAMMA LIRICO in four acts Libretto ARRIGO BOITO

ORCHESTRA

3 flutes (3rd doubles as piccolo) 2 oboes / 1 cor anglais / 2 clarinets bass clarinet / 4 bassoons / 4 horns 2 cornets / 2 trumpets / 3 trombones bass trombone / percussion / harp violin I / violin II / viola cello / double bass INCIDENTAL MUSIC ON STAGE mandolin / guitar bagpipe (or 2 oboes) OFF-STAGE INCIDENTAL MUSIC 3 alto horns 2 pistons (or cornets) 6 cornets / 2 trumpets 3 trombones / organ / canon

AUTOGRAPH WORLD PREMIÈRE

Ricordi Archives 5 FEBRUARY 1887

La Scala Milan FIRST PERFORMANCE Court Opera Vienna DURATION

3H

14 MARCH 1888

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

OTELLO

SYNOPSIS BACKGROUND (FROM THE SHAKESPEARE PLAY) Desdemona, daughter of the Venetian senator Brabantio, is in love with the successful foreign general Otello, who is serving in the Venetian army. She marries him in secret, without telling her father. Roderigo is attracted to Desdemona but is rejected by her father. Jealous of Otello, he tells Brabantio about his daugh­ ter’s marriage. Brabantio is furious and sets off to arrest Otello.

Just then, the news arrives that the Turkish fleet has set sail for Cyprus, which is occupied by Venice. The doge appoints Otello commander-in-chief of the defending force. Since it turns out that Otello has been a welcome guest in Brabantio’s house, the doge also gives his approval for Desdemona’s marriage. Braban­ tio is obliged to relent. Iago, a scheming, malicious ensign of Otello’s, has been passed over for promotion to captain in favour of Cassio. He now hates his commander and is planning his re­ venge; he nevertheless manages to win Otello’s confidence.

ACT 1 Otello is returning to Cyprus in the midst of a violent storm, having conquered the Turks in a battle at sea. Iago promises Roderigo that Desdemona will one day be his and inflames him against Cassio. He gets Cassio drunk and instigates a fight bet­ ween Cassio and Roderigo. An uproar ensues until Otello steps in. He demotes Cassio and orders peace. He and Desdemona are left alone; together they sing of their happiness in love.

Previous pages: SCENE

4

SYNOPSIS

ACT 2 Iago encourages the despondent Cassio to ask Desdemona to intercede on his behalf with Otello. The moment Cassio leaves, Iago professes his faith in evil which he can turn to his own be­ nefit, his conviction that people are subject to an evil fate, and his disbelief in life after death. When Cassio goes to see Desde­ mona, Iago inflames Otello’s jealousy as he watches the two tal­ king from afar. When Desdemona then in fact begs her husband to forgive Cassio, Otello reacts correspondingly furiously. Iago secretly steals Desdemona’s handkerchief from his wife Emilia.

He convinces Otello that he has heard Cassio talking in his sleep about Desdemona and that he had seen the handkerchief in Cas­ sio’s hands. Otello swears revenge.

ACT 3 Iago further fuels the intrigue. He has Otello listen to a conver­ sation between himself and Cassio, of which Otello can hear only a few seemingly incriminating snippets. As they converse, Cassio is holding Desdemona’s handkerchief that Iago has ma­ naged to pass off to him. Lodovico, a Venetian envoy, appears to inform Otello he has been recalled to Venice. When Otello, feeling deeply humiliated and scarcely able to control himself, hurls Desdemona brutally to the floor a short while later, the company leave the room, horrified. Iago delights as Otello sinks, fainting, to the floor.

ACT 4 In her chamber, Desdemona prepares for bed but is plagued by ominous forebodings. Otello approaches his sleeping wife, awa­ kens her and accuses her of infidelity. She protests her innocence to no avail; Otello strangles her. Alarmed by the noise, Emilia rushes in. She explains the situation with the handkerchief, whereupon Iago takes flight. Stabbing himself, Otello says fare­ well to his beloved dead wife with a kiss.

5

Following page:

LUDOVIC TÉZIER as IAGO

KOPFZEILE

6

ARRIGO BOITO

IAGO IS ENVY. IAGO IS A VILLAIN. IAGO IS A CRITIC. THE CRUDEST MISTAKE, THE TACKIEST ERROR THE ACTOR WHO DARES TO INTERPRET THIS FIGURE COULD MAKE WOULD BE TO PRESENT HIM AS A KIND OF DEMON IN HUMAN FORM.

DIRECTOR ADRIAN NOBLE IN AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREAS LÁNG

THE MOST DANGEROUS HUMAN EMOTION al

After the beautiful and popular productions of Alcina and Hänsel und Gretel, with Otello at the Wiener Staatsoper you now are indirectly returning to your own artistic roots. As a former longtime head of the Royal Shakes­ peare Company, you are familiar with the work of Shakes­peare in a way that very few can claim to be… an The wonderful thing is that in Verdi’s operas based on Shakespeare, two of greatest humanistically-minded theatre giants converge. Both the Eng­ lish playwright and the Italian opera composer knew and loved the world of theatre through which they interpreted the world, both were insightful connois­ seurs of the human psyche, which each of them presented on the stage in his own way. So it is always a gift to be able to produce one of these three works. al Your happiness in this respect must be complete then. You directed Macbeth and Falstaff at the Met and in Gothenburg, and now you are closing the circle with Otello in Vienna.

an Something that has always fas­ cinated me in this context is the ques­ tion of what changes Verdi made to the Shakespeare source material when writ­ ing his operas, and what he omitted or added – in the case of the last two ope­ras of course in collaboration with the con­ genial Arrigo Boito. Even if we know what the differences are in general, for the director it is worthwhile reflecting on this again on each occasion and exa­ mining the reasons for the changes. For example, the fact that Verdi added the famous chorus of Scottish exiles in his Macbeth must be seen in the context of the great revolutions that shook Europe between 1789 and 1849, but it can also be understood as a contemporary state­ ment, especially today. The differences between the play Othello and the opera Otello on the other hand are many and varied, to be sure due in part to the fact that the rules that apply to a play are different from those for the opera stage, and some adjustments are therefore re­ quired. There again, some things can be explained by the social context at the time of writing in each case, while other details are fascinating fine adjustments

8

THE MOST DANGEROUS HUMAN EMOTION

to the characters who interpret the story through Verdi. al The fact that the entire first act of Shakespeare’s Othello is omitted in Verdi/Boito presumably falls under the rubric of the rules for a play being different from those for the opera stage? an Yes indeed. Verdi and Boito had to tighten the storyline in general, con­ dense it into a melodrama in the best sense of the word. This meant summa­ rizing the first act in one or two sen­ tences. Nevertheless, the singers must be familiar with everything that hap­ pens in Act 1 and should allow it to influence their portrayal. The soprano singing Desdemona, for example, must keep the confrontation with her father – not shown in the opera – in the back of her mind because her relationship with Otello can only be completely under­ stood with this knowledge. But when we’re talking about adaptation, it is not merely about an entire act “missing” from the Verdi version, but a very basic problem: with his very symbolic poetry, Shakespeare developed an extremely fervent form of expression, which how­ ever is not usable for music theatre in this complex form. For Verdi, the task in hand was to (re-)create “his” characters first through the music. al And then there were psychological fine adjustments to be made… an Here is just one not insignificant detail by way of an example. In Act 2, Verdi incorporates the voices of children in the chorus. These children do not ap­ pear in Shakespeare at all. In the opera, Otello sees his wife surrounded by child­ ren, and at that very moment, when everything seems to be looking grim for him, he has an inkling, a wishful dream of family happiness. Verdi and Boito

change nothing in the basic message of Shakespeare’s original, but with this addition in a sense they tighten the thumbscrews on Otello, they further exacerbate his torment. I intentionally followed through with this idea in our production and included children in the crowd in Act 1 as well, for Othello’s ar­ rival. Incidentally, Shakespeare himself presented the issue of childlessness and the associated fear of mortality very ele­ gantly with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Seen in that light, in Otello Verdi and Boito took advantage of a Shakespea­ rean dramatic stratagem. al Iago’s famous Credo is frequently a topic of discussion. Why did Verdi and Boito develop and include this Credo? an It is possible that over numerous lunches and dinners together Verdi and Boito racked their brains as to what might have driven Iago to act as he did, why he was so evil. (laughs) Shakespeare provides no information on this topic, he simply portrays him in all his ambiguity.

But note that he does so without con­ demning Iago. Even though Iago is the most complex character in the plot of the opera as well, with the Credo Verdi and Boito demystify his character slightly, giving him a comprehensible motive in order to make his actions more under­ standable for the audience. Naturally, we should not forget that Shakespeare would never have been allowed to write this kind of Credo because of the reli­ gious restrictions of the day. In non of his works is the Christian God or even Jesus Christ mentioned by name. At the end of the 19th century, Verdi and Boito had very different possibilities open to them. al That means that in contrast to Shakespeare, Verdi does indeed pass judgement on Iago.

9

DIRECTOR ADRIAN NOBLE IN AN INTERVIEW

an Yes, because the Credo is an unam­ biguous articulation of how he thinks and what his character is like. al When you directed Alcina and Hänsel und Gretel, you said that each of these plots symbolize a journey, a pilgrimage that foists experience on the characters. Is this image also applicable to Otello? an Certainly. After all, Shakespeare’s dramatization is based on precisely this idea: in terms of character development, the characters start at a certain point, experience the drama, and at the end stand as changed, matured personali­ ties before the audience, who have also undertaken this spiritual journey. Each individual step in this emotional accu­ mulation of knowledge is reflected in a visual counterpart. In Otello this is clearly the weather and the elements, which interact with human emotions.

We need only think of the storm at the beginning of the opera, the seemingly serene scene by the fire in Act 1, the beautiful, star-studded night sky in the love duet between Otello and Des­ demona at the end of Act 1, or the wind in Act 4 that seems to knock at the door and anticipates the arrival of a homi­ cidal Otello. al Turning now specifically to your production: what sources of inspiration did you use, naturally apart from the music? an An important consideration when we started work on Otello was the fact that Shakespeare fundamentally ranks jealousy, or more specifically sexual jealousy, as the most dangerous hu­ man emotion. It is even more dange­ rous than anger or hatred, since in his opinion all the other destructive, cruel forces that so often shatter human co­

existence derive from jealousy. Jealousy is also the main defining momentum in many operas. Many of the greats, such as Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg and Edvard Munch at the turn of the 19th century explored every possible facet of the subject of jealousy in their plays or paintings. In his numerous versions of jealousy, Munch did so in highly thea­ trical manner. Everyone knows his picture with the jealous, bearded man in the foreground and the couple in the background, either engaged in harmless conversation or, in the opinion of the jealous man, arranging a tryst. This dra­ matically charged scene could be depict­ ing Otello’s exact situation: Cassio asks Desdemona to intercede on his behalf, and Otello believes he has unco­vered his wife’s infidelity. Munch depicts what Verdi renders in music and what is ob­ vious to the audience: the gulf that sep­ arates the plane of reality from that of Otello’s imagination. My team and I re­ cognized an artistic connection between Verdi and Scandinavia here, and this was a considerable source of inspiration.

It was one of the ways we approached the piece. Another was drawn from the socio-historical si­tuation of the loca­ tion. As you know, to this day Cyprus is a divided island that has come under foreign rule time and again, whether by Ottoman, Venetian, Genoese or British occupying forces. For centuries, Cyprus was the colony of ano­ther power, just as India was a colony of Great Britain for example. We were extremely inter­ ested in the tensions created by the di­ chotomy between the local population and the foreign military power, in the case of Otello a Venetian power, and we wanted to portray it in this production as a dynamic force. And so we moved the action to the era of the last burgeon­

10

THE MOST DANGEROUS HUMAN EMOTION

ing of colonialism, at the beginning of the 20th century, before the outbreak of World War I. al That necessitates at least in part a Muslim local population confronting the Venetian soldiery... an I chose to make the voices at the beginning of the opera the voices of the occupying forces, ie the Venetians.

There are many other people on the stage who are local, who are muslim, and for these, Otello’s words about the death of Muslims would be terrible. He may well be referring to their husbands or sons. al Even during the design discussions, you talked about iconographic moments that you would depict in the production.

an The religious cross-references in the opera go beyond Iago’s Credo and Desdemona’s Ave Maria. So without doubt in her purity Desdemona even as­ sumes the place of the Madonna, and in the storm at the beginning of the opera it is not by chance that judgement day is alluded to. I took this as an opportunity to develop a parallel between Michelan­ gelo’s depiction of the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel and the storm scene.

Just as the souls of the damned are cast into hell in the fresco, I had the shadow of a sailor fall into the thrashing seas.

But here too I must reiterate: I have not imposed my own ideas on the piece, but have taken individual elements that Verdi and Boito used and developed them in keeping with their approach.

11

Following pages: ALEKSANDRS ANTONENKO as OTELLO

OLGA BEZSMERTNA as DESDEMONA

DESIGNER DICK BIRD IN AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREAS LÁNG

EXILES VERSUS LOCALS al

When talking about this production of Otello, Adrian Noble mentioned drawing inspiration from several paintings by Edvard Munch. To what extent did this carry over to the set and costumes? db It’s really strange. When Adrian mentioned these pictures to me, I couldn’t imagine how they might in­ fluence my work. But the more I looked at one of the paintings depicting an isolated man being watched by a large threateningly aloof crowd, the more I realized that this composition also illustrates Otello’s relationship with those around him. Even though no one is really saying so specifically, apart from Iago, Otello is not a Venetian, but a stranger, an outsider, who is accep­ ted but does not belong. And indeed I was inspired by these rather worrying figures in black frock coats and top hats with blank faces, who almost seem to be furtively watching the outsider. Not least the appearance of the chorus in Act 1 – which is like a black threatening mass that comes out of a storm or disap­ pears into it – is certainly due to the in­

fluence of Edvard Munch. And from his massively strong colours in some of his famous paintings about jealousy I deve­ loped a sort of copper feeling for the set.

It seemed to express best that intensity of passion that surges up time and again in this piece. Yes, so in this way Munch is everywhere on this Otello stage. al Also on the topic of inspiration: are there aspects that you took from Shakespeare rather than from the Verdi opera? db Years ago I had the pleasure of designing Shakespeare’s Othello at the Globe Theatre, but working on the ope­ra here, I never felt a need to go back to the play. One reason is that Verdi and Boito created such an outstanding work, which although based on Shakes­ peare actually portrays something selfcontained and different. We need only think of the omitted first act set in Ve­ nice; this omission simplifies the work of the designer since Cyprus is then the only location, instead of the two com­ pletely different locations present in the Shakespeare play. And for another thing, I had the music as source mate­ rial. It tells a story of great love, of pas­

14

EXILES VERSUS LOCALS

sion, of jealousy, of hatred, of moods, but it also tells us about the difficulties that Desdemona had with her father, al­ though this interlude is not shown on the stage. The two geniuses Verdi and Boito knew that there were things they just didn’t need to show in order to tell the story. al The action in this production was deliberately set at the beginning of the 20th century. Was this decision made by the director or the designer? db In our early discussions, Adrian said that he was very interested in in­ corporating the idea of colonialism in our narrative, simply to illustrate even more clearly the social circumstances on Cyprus in which Otello and the other characters are immersed. It was an interesting discovery for us that the chorus were not a group of local people who belong to Cyprus, happily going about their daily work under the Venetian yoke, but were to a certain ex­ tent colonists, providing a service here, away from their real home – just as for­ merly the French were in Algeria or the British in India. By contrast, the local people themselves were much further down the hierarchy and carried out only menial tasks. To illustrate all this we chose a period from the not too distant past, one we can relate to, but in which colonialism, that land grabbing by Eu­ ropean powers, was flourishing again.

And so we settled on the year 1910. al And can we see the time period in the set and costumes, or is it merely a conceptual approach? db Well, only atmospherically in the set I mentioned, which consists of two rather threatening shapes that move during the evening. The actual period is more clearly communicated through

the costumes and objects on the stage, although we referred rather generally to the years immediately before the war rather adhering slavishly to details. But when the technological achievement of electricity – new at that time – fizzes up in the background and in doing so rein­ forces the human emotions, that is of course a relatively precise indication of the period. al You said that the period around 1910 would be relatively readily identifiable from the costumes.

Are they in the style of any particular country? db No, we have deliberately looted and mixed from the entire European map. (laughs) al But the uniforms of the exiles and the clothes of the locals are different? db The Venetians, the colonists, are all smartly dressed in elegant but not ne­ cessarily comfortable suits and dresses: corsets, waistcoats in this hot weather, etc. – just as the British did back then in sweltering India, taking their tradi­ tional habits and lifestyle with them to foreign countries. The local people go around almost unnoticed, like ghosts, dressed in the rags that they have ma­ naged to get out of a rubbish bin, much like poor people in today’s slums. al And Desdemona? db You know, my father was a cap­ tain in the Navy, and my mother had the typical role of a captain’s wife: orga­ nizing coffee mornings with the other officers’ wives, for example, looking after the children and in general being a kind of appurtenance to the captain.

Quite understandably, my mother hated it. Desdemona exercises a similar func­ tion in the eyes of high society – and she dresses accordingly.

15

FERRUCCIO BUSONI

IT IS POINTLESS TO DENY THAT – WHEN VERDI’S OTELLO CAME OUT – WE WERE LOOKING AT A SIGNIFICANT EVENT IN MUSIC FOR THE STAGE. OTELLO IS PERHAPS THE LAST WORK OF ITALY’S GREATEST LIVING COMPOSER, INDEED, THE ONLY LIVING OPERA COMPOSER AT ALL, BECAUSE THIS IS HOW A MAN MUST BE DESCRIBED WHO – LIKE VERDI – HAS LIVED AND

MOVED EXCLUSIVELY WITHIN THEATRE MUSIC, AND WHO HAS WORKED FRUITFULLY AND SUCCESSFULLY IN IT FOR FIFTY YEARS. FURTHERMORE, OTELLO DEFINES THE PEAK OF ALL THAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED TO DATE IN ITALIAN OPERA MUSIC; THIS APPLIES LESS TO THE INVENTION AND CONTENT OF THE SAME THAN TO THE FORM AND DIRECTION.

ANDREAS LÁNG

WHEN ANTAGONISTS BECOME PARTNERS THE CREATION OF OTELLO Initially, the ingredients were an old composer who had sworn off the stage years ago, an intellectually progressive librettist with opposing views, and a publisher who knows all the tricks.

This was the mixture that ultimately resulted in Otello, but only after the animosity between the first two had evolved into respect, acknowledgement and even friendship, leading to several years of intensive collaboration.

First, however, Italian Wagnerian Arrigo Boito publicly desecrated an icon in a Milan periodical by accusing Verdi, almost 30 years older and highly regarded, of having “soiled the altar of art as if it was a brothel wall”. Insulted, Verdi superciliously replied, “If I have soiled the altar of art, as Boito writes, then let him clean it: I will be the first to come and light a candle,” which was hardly likely to defuse the situation.

The front lines of the generational con­ flict seemed to be drawn, enmity set in stone, and only someone familiar with the human psyche, or more accurately the complex composer’s psyche, who could assess the talents on each side and imagine the creative flowering that must inevitably result from bringing

them together, could come up with the bizarre notion of making Verdi and Boito partners. Giulio Ricordi, ener­ getic managing director of the familyowned Italian music publisher with the same name, dared to do this, not least to motivate Verdi to compose more ope­ ras (also a healthy source of earnings) and ultimately succeeded, in every re­ spect: besides the successful revision of Simon Boccanegra, the partnership led to Fal­staff after Otello, and substantial profits from the collaboration of these congenial former opponents.

Ricordi carefully laid the founda­ tion for the reconciliation, staged it, and produced it in three acts. In the first act, he baited the hook at a great dinner with Verdi and Ricordi and seve­ ral friends of the composer, by playing on Verdi’s weak­ness for the plays of the English dramatist and talking quite ge­ nerally about Othello, Boito and Shake­ speare. The second act followed on the next day, when Franco Faccio (who later conducted the world première of Otello) brought Arrigo Boito to Verdi at his hotel. Three days later, in the third act, Boito surprised Verdi by presenting a draft for a possible Otello opera, and

18

W HEN A N TAGON ISTS BECOME PA RT N ER S

from that point on everything seemed settled.

Verdi liked the proposed project, even if he appeared to hesitate and even refused to meet Boito personally when the latter tried to present a first version of the libretto in late 1879. “If you turn up here with Boito, I am duty bound to read the libretto that he will bring with him. And if I think the libretto is good, my hands are tied to some extent. If I think it good and suggest a couple of changes which Boito accepts, then I am even more tied,” Verdi wrote to Giulio Ricordi, and managed to have the li­bretto delivered without the poet being present.

Verdi did like the libretto, and suggested changes which Boito accepted.

However, he also suggested changes, such as a sudden attack by the Turkish army in the third act, which Boito rejec­ ted for dramatic reasons: “This attack by the Turks makes me think of a fist breaking the window of the chamber in which two people are dying of suffo­ cation. The mood of death so explicitly created by Shakespeare suddenly disap­ pears […], in other words, we have found an end for an act, but at the expense of losing the effect of the disaster at the

end,” he replied to Verdi in his letter of 18 October 1880, delivering the better alternative which was then set to music.

It was a process of give and take, which was only briefly disturbed in 1884, when Boito is reported to have said at a ban­ quet in Naples celebrating the première of his Mefistofele that he regretted not being able to set Otello himself. Verdi was piqued and told Franco Faccio that he was considering withdrawing from the collaboration. “As the libretto is my property, I offer it to him as a gift, if he intends to compose it. If he accepts, I shall have the pleasant hope that I shall have served and benefited the art which we all love with this contribution.”

But the ruffled feathers were smoo­ thed and the work continued – Verdi completed the score in 1886 after some seven years, and a few weeks later the triumphant world première, rehear­ sed by Verdi, took place at La Scala on 5 February 1887 – with a certain Ar­ turo Toscanini in the cello section. The rehear­­sals with Verdi gave the young Toscanini a chance to peer into the deep­est levels of the score, and instilled in him a lasting love for the works of the great composer.

19

ADRIAN MOURBY

OTHELLO AND OTELLO WHY DID BOITO AND VERDI PUT IN IAGO’S CREDO AND THE PRAYER OF DESDEMONA? Though the composition of Otello was a slow and occasionally fraught process, it brought forth a doubly successful opera.

Not only was Giuseppe Verdi coaxed out of retirement to write the first of his late masterpieces, but he cre­ated what many consider to be the most successful opera­ tic adaptation of Shakespeare, bar none.

There have to date been over 200 Shakespearean operas, from Purcell’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream adapta­ tion, known as The Faerie Queen (1692) to Benjamin Britten’s own version in 1960 but in the nineteenth century the grizz­led old Italian composer from Sant’ Agata made Shakespeare his own. Verdi kept a complete edition of Shakespeare by his bedside and drew on his deep love of the English playwright – even if he only ever read him in Italian. That love shines through in Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff, his reworking of The Merry Wives of Windsor. He also began work on a King Lear, which was left sadly abando­ ned at his death.

Much credit must also go to Arrigo Boito, the poet, journalist and libret­ tist who found a way of working with

Verdi on Otello and Falstaff that played to the composer’s strengths. Boito, a composer himself, did not simply edit Shakespeare’s 3500 lines down to the 800 that Verdi needed. He discussed dra­ matic moments with the composer and when the two men had structured them in a way that worked for the older man, Boito went back to Shakespeare and found the necessary words. This way of working resulted in some significant changes to the order of events. Othello’s description to the senators of how he and Desdemona fell in love (Shakes­ peare’s Act I, set in Venice) turns up as part of the couple’s love duet in Cyprus (Shakespeare’s Act II). Othello’s deran­ ged fainting fit, which in Shakespeare takes place while Iago is still convincing him of Desdemona’s infidelity with Cas­ sio, occurs later in the opera as part of the Act III finale, just as Verdi brings in a chorus, singing of Otello’s triumphs.

There are some changes to the action also.

Verdi’s opera removes Act I of the play entirely so that the narrative begins with great urgency during a seastorm (in

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OTHELLO AND OTELLO

reality Shakespeare’s Act II). And instead of any of the action occurring in Venice, the story unfolds entirely – and claus­ trophobically – on the island of Cyprus.

In Shakespeare’s play Iago stabs Ro­ derigo to death, while in Verdi’s opera it is Cassio who kills Iago’s co-conspirator.

At the end of the play, malevolent Iago is borne off to be tortured while Verdi and Boito have him running away, avoi­ ding capture and able to engender more chaos another day. But biggest shift is less obvious than all these. The world of Otello, as written by Verdi and Boito is more overtly religious than the world of Othello. In Shakespeare’s text, reference is often made to God and to the Heavens, but these invocations are often simply oaths or forms of emphasis. The world­ view of Shakespeare’s Othello is that of post-Reformation England. Christian belief exists but “God” is often also a figure of speech. For Verdi and Boito however their Italian and Catholic God is a definite actual presence. In the play

Othello the word “God” is used just 13 times but “Dio” (God) occurs 38 times, almost three times more often in Verdi’s opera, even though the opera contains only a quarter of the number of lines found in Shakespeare’s play. Similarly Shakespeare uses “Heaven” 46 times while Verdi uses “Ciel” on 72 occasions.

This greater emphasis on Christianity and man’s relationship to God also finds its way into two of the major additions that Boito wrote for Verdi.

The first of these is Desdemona’s Ave Maria, which is inserted after The Song of the Willow before she goes to bed at the beginning of the opera’s last act.

Opera and play run on parallel tracks at this point in the story. In the play we also find Desdemona preparing to get into to her doomed bed in the last act. In both, the scene opens with a sad, reviled Desdemona recalling her mother’s maid Barbara who had been deserted by her lover and who would often sing The Song of Willow.

SHAKESPEARE The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow: Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow: Sing all a green willow must be my garland BOITO She wept singing on the lonely heath The sad creature wept. Willow! Willow! Willow!

She sat, bowing her head on her breast Come sing! The weeping willow shall be my garland Desdemona then breaks off, thinking she hears someone outside SHAKESPEARE Hark! who is’t that knocks?

BOITO Hark. I hear someone moaning. Hush. Who is knocking at that door?

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ADRIAN MOURBY

And in both play and opera, Emilia dismisses the noise with the words “It is the wind”. Concluding her song, Desdemona then says goodnight to Emilia.

SHAKESPEARE So, get thee gone; good night My eyes do itch; Doth that bode weeping?

BOITO How my eyes burn! It presages weeping Ah, Emilia, Emilia, farewell. Emilia farewell!

In Shakespeare, after further gossip, Desdemona sends Emilia away and then reflects to herself: SHAKESPEARE Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send, Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!

But in the opera she says her prayers using a full text of the Ave Maria – with some Boito additions asking for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

BOITO Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed amongst wives and maids art thou, and blessed is the fruit, o blessed one, of thy maternal womb, Jesu.

Pray for those who kneeling adore thee, pray for the sinner, for the innocent and for the weak oppressed; and to the powerful man, who also grieves, thy sweet compassion show.

Pray for him who bows beneath injustice and ’neath the blows of cruel destiny; for us, pray thou for us, pray for us always, and at the hour of our death pray for us, pray for us, pray!

Hail Mary... ...and at the hour of our death.

Hail! Amen!

As the drama reaches its terrifying finale, Otello/Othello now arrives in the bed­ chamber to kill Desdemona. In the opera her bargaining for a stay of execution: “Let me live tonight… an hour... a moment… just let me say a prayer” follows Shake­

speare’s action very closely “Let me live tonight!… But half an hour!… But while I say one prayer!” Ironically in the opera she has already just said the prayer that Boito has interpolated, but in both opera and play Otello/Othello replies “It is too late”.

22

OTHELLO AND OTELLO

The violence of Desdemona’s death in the opera is all the more shocking for following so swiftly on from the Ave Maria. It also completes the saintly pic­ ture of Desdemona that Verdi and Boito have developed throughout the opera.

Repartee between Emilia and her mis­ tress and any other worldly exchanges with Cassio and Othello himself were all cut in preparing the libretto. So was Brabantio’s bitter, snarling remarks about his daughter’s secrecy: “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father, and may thee.”

Under Verdi’s explicit direction, Boito turned Desdemona into an idealised wife. In fact in March 1886, while di­ scussing casting the part with Giulio Ricordi, Verdi squashed the proposal for Gemma Bellincioni (a noted recent Violetta) with the words that “even a nobody could succeed in La traviata but a Desdemona must have the capacity to represent ideal womanhood.” This re­ casting of Desdemona as the embodi­

ment of perfection weights the opera far more heavily against Otello than does Shakespeare’s play against Othello. In both opera and play Otello is always wrong, easily misled and far too prey to jealousy and anger, but in the play he kills a loving and spirited wife. In the opera he murders a saint.

Conversely the other major addition to the story that Boito made for Verdi was in writing Iago’s Credo. At the be­ ginning of Act II in the opera (Act III in the play) Iago brings Cassio and Desde­ mona together to discuss her interceding for Cassio with Otello. He then makes sure Otello overhears him muttering “I like not that” as the couple are tal­ king. It is the first opportunity that Iago has to plant real poison in Othello’s mind. In the opera however Iago steps out of his machinations before he sows deadly jealousy in Otello’s mind to tell us, the audience, that he believes in a cruel God and that he, Iago is fashioned to do his bidding.

BOITO I believe in a cruel God who created me in his image and who in fury I name.

From the very vileness of a germ or an atom, vile was I born.

I am a wretch because I am a man, and I feel within me the primeval slime.

Yes! This is my creed! I believe with a heart as steadfast as that of the widow in church, that the evil I think and that which I perform I think and do by destiny’s decree.

I believe the just man to be a mocking actor in face and heart; that all his being is a lie, tear, kiss, glance, sacrifice and honour.

And I believe man the sport of evil fate from the germ of the cradle to the worm of the grave.

After all this mockery then comes Death.

And then?... And then?

Death is nothingness, heaven an old wives’ tale.

23

OTHELLO AND OTELLO

This terrifying soliloquy goes a long way to explaining why Iago is so set on destroying Othello. Ever since Shakes­ peare wrote the play in 1603, there have been discussions about why Iago, a man of great ability and charm, is so malevolent towards his commanding officer. Readers have picked up on re­ marks Iago makes about being passed over for promotion and to the possi­ bility that Othello previously bedded Emilia, Iago’s wife. There have also been more recent theories that Iago is motivated by racism. But the simplest explanation is that Iago is just plain evil. Not only is he evil, he’s a Satanic figure who is the cause of wickedness in others, men who are not inherently evil. Iago spreads evil like a contagion.

He convinces Roderigo to murder Cas­ sio, and he incites Othello to murder his own wife.

But nowhere is Iago’s motivation stated in Shakespeare. The baldest admission he makes in our hearing is “I hate the Moor.” Feeling that those

four words were not enough, Boito urged Verdi to accept a chilling ma­ nifesto of evil for its own sake. Iago’s powerful Credo not only explains the one inexplicable part of Shakespeare’s story, it provides a counterweight to the saintly Desdemona and supports the pol­a­rised world view that Boito and Verdi created for their Otello: Des­ demona so perfect; Iago so malevolent.

Otello is caught between these two for­ ces and in a bleak Manichaean take on Christia­nity, Verdi and Boito see him destroyed. His wife, the personification of goodness, also dies. Meanwhile the malefactor escapes. Otello is not just a great adaptation of Shakes­peare, it is Shakespeare brilliantly re­fashioned as an opera. But perhaps there wasn’t so much work for Verdi and Boito to do after all. As the British playwright and wit George Bernard Shaw put it, “Ins­ tead of Otello being an Italian opera written in the style of Shakespeare, Othello is a play written by Shakes­ peare in the style of Italian opera.”

24

KS STEPHEN GOULD as OTELLO KS KRASSIMIRA STOYANOVA

as DESDEMONA

KON R A D PAU L LIE S SM A N N

LA MORTE È

IL NULLA IAGO’S CREDO AND EUROPEAN NIHILISM The dramatis personae of William Shakes­peare’s Othello follows Iago’s name with simply “a villain” as a descrip­ tion. This is not just a passing comment.

Iago is not just an intriguing courtier, not just an envy-driven careerist, the raging also-ran, the plotter rejoicing at others’ misfortunes – he embodies the principle of negativity. Iago is one of the great in­ carnations of evil in European theatre.

This is why, as Giuseppe Verdi noted, Iago should always be dressed in black, “as black as his soul”.

Verdi’s librettist, Arrigo Boito, would ideally have placed the plotter entirely in the centre of the action – he and also Verdi toyed with the idea of calling the opera Iago, partly to distinguish it from Rossini’s Otello. While it never came to this, Iago becomes a dominant figure in Verdi’s Otello who reveals his black soul in a dark piece of self-reflection. Iago, the notorious liar who puts on an act for everyone, is entirely alone for a moment, and able to be himself. Boito has put a de­ claration of faith in Iago’s mouth which is not present in Shakespeare, and which Verdi brilliantly set to music at the start of act two. This Credo is frequently called “nihilist”. But what does that mean?

Iago’s Credo borrows the form of the liturgical creed in order to mockingly deviate from its content. “I believe” is re­ peated four times, adopting the formula

of the Apostles’ Creed, but the content veers increasingly drastically to its anti­ thesis. Iago believes in a cruel god, not an omnipotent one; the diabolical flagbearer believes in an irreversible depravity, not a saviour; the cynical intriguer believes in an unjust fate, not in justice to come; the villain believes in the finality of death, not in eternal life. Quite clearly, Iago’s Credo breathes the spirit of the 19th cen­ tury. The fundamental criticism of reli­ gion delighted in appearing then in the guise of religion. For example, the first draft of the Communist Manifesto written

by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was still written in the form of a confession of faith, and was actually called a “cate­ chism”. There is a similar situation with Iago’s famous “Credo”. The rejection of all faith ap­pears as a confession of faith.

It is not just an act of blasphemy by Iago, and it is not just a travesty of Chris­ tian dogma – this is an expression of very modern ideas, even if it uses quasi-reli­ gious rhetoric. Iago is a philosophical Nihilist. His faith is faith in nothing.

As such, he is less in the line of modern Gnostics who toyed with the idea of an evil creator not least out of aesthetic con­ siderations, and more in the tradition of those critics of religion who see it as a fairy tale meant to console people for the dire conditions of their futile and point­ less existence.

26

LA MORTE È IL NULLA

Basically, Iago acts out Fyodor Dos­to­­ yevsky’s famous saying that every­thing is permitted if God does not exist. He is also close to Friedrich Nietzsche here, who gave this idea a different turn: “Nothing is true, everything is allowed.”

This is almost word for word Iago’s creed.

According to Iago, everything is “lies” to a purportedly “just man”, whose tears, kiss, expression, sacrifice and honour are just the deceptions of a mocking ac­ tor. Nothing is true, no one can be trus­ ted, neither god nor man. And this is why everything is allowed for Iago.

Under these conditions, human life appears as a trivial “toy of an unjustfate”, with death as its end, the great, final, ir­ revocable nothing. In the face of this no­ thingness, everything before it becomes meaningless. As a result, it is completely irrelevant how someone lives and what they do. Morality is another fantasy.

This nothingness gives Iago the option of viewing his depravity as the expres­ sion of a merciless nature, evil grows out of the“vileness of a germ or vile atom”, it comes from the “primeval slime”, it is a product of evolution. The gruesome and merciless demiurge is merely a metaphor for the merciless laws of nature. Iago is a naturalistic Nihilist. And this puts him at the leading edge of his time. Modern European Nihilism has roots that date back to the 18th century and is the at­ tempt to conceive of a world without God, salvation or prospects. Nietzsche, who knew Verdi’s Otello but did not ap­ preciate it, had seen the “greatest danger” in Nihilism: that no­thing had any point.

According to modern science, humans are merely the toy of forces which they can only under­stand to a limited extent.

They are defined by the accidents of birth, genetic make-up, their drives and the quirks of their unconscious, by the

social milieu they are born into. Freedom is an illusion. Iago, and this is entirely in line with the defensive strategies of the great modern criminals, does not claim to have exercised free will in choosing evil. He was created this way by nature, and he is as nature itself is – ruthless, vile and unjust. For a moment, this blasphe­ mous creed touches even the gruesome world of the Marquis de Sade.

What remains in the face of this bru­ tality from a being devoted to nothing­ ness. Only despair? Friedrich Nietzsche tried a different answer – the will to power. Life simply wants to live, even without a purpose. And wanting to live means wanting more, which means pro­ ducing something, which means crea­ ting something. But for those who have to admit their powerlessness in real life, this desire to live can turn to pure de­ structiveness. Nietzsche knew that peo­ ple will rather desire nothingness than have no desire. What does this mean? If all prospects have failed, if no positive goal is left to the will to power, then all that remains is the desire to destroy.

Iago’s Credo is the pure, intense ex­ pression of such a desire. This is what makes him one of the truly evil figu­ res who no longer need to follow some pretended good – an idea, an ideology, a utopia, a religion – to give free rein to their destructiveness. Vileness, trea­ chery, intrigue, deceit are not means to an end for him, but an end in them­ selves. He will be brought down with Otello, but in the knowledge of having provoked and steered this downfall.

Iago’s power shows itself only in the ne­ gation of everything, but it is fulfilled there. “That I follow my destiny in the evil in my thoughts and actions.”

In the 1930s, on the eve of World War II, the philosopher Günther Anders

27

KON R A D PAU L LIE S SM A N N

developed a negative anthropology in which he tried to understand the mo­ dern nihilist character. Anders argued that people suffered a “contingency shock” when faced by the insight into the complete randomness and mea­ ninglessness of their existence. There are two ways to cushion this shock.

According to Anders, the “historical in­ dividual” sees the past of their family or the group which they feel attached to as something like a structure which gives meaning to their existence and future.

People who find their identity in tradi­ tion or ethnic, religious and political alle­giance fall into this category. Such people find meaning in a larger com­ munity, involvement and interpretation of the past is essential for them, as they take their future from their origin, gi­ ving them the power to escape from the arbitrary nature and meaninglessness of their individual fate. The “nihilist indivi­ dual” is an en­tirely different story. They are individualists who accept the absur­ dity of existence. They seek to counter it en­tirely by themselves and from their own resources. Traditions and the va­ lues of a community lose their validity, the nihilists define their own values and can only find meaning in their exis­ tence if they validate the world with their stamp. They want to leave their mark. They are concerned with mas­ tery of space and time, they suffer from the struggle for power and fame. Their life only appears validated if they direct or destroy the lives of others. Günther Anders left no room for doubt that the nihilist individual able to live without the creation myths and origin stories represents the modern consciousness.

Verdi’s Iago is undoubtedly an exam­ ple of the nihilist individual. Iago – like Otello – is an outsider. He has no family

tree, does not belong to any community or accept any predefined order. The evil in him is an expression of an existential sense of being lost, and at the same time a desperate attempt to evade this sense by subjugating himself to the world in which he lives. He can only do this in a destructive and cynical way. He has neither the greatness nor the power to overcome nihilism in Nietzsche’s sense by creating something new, becoming a creator himself. But his skills and intel­ ligence are sufficient to destroy every­ thing around him. Iago is also a demons­ tration that the power of the powerless is more dangerous than the power of the mighty. Villainy and malice are not, as Iago would like to believe, a natural en­ dowment, but the result of his weakness.

In terms of modern thinking, it is virtually impossible to deny Iago’s nihi­ lism. Science has disposed of magic for humanity. The enlightened individual who can no longer believe that they are part of God’s plan must somehow come to terms with the shock of contingency, the experience of the meaninglessness of their existence, death as a brute fact.

However, this need not necessarily mean resorting to the desire to destroy which we see in Iago. The will to create is another possible response to contin­ gency shock. This creative power is well aware of its limits – naturally, artists or scientists are not gods. But the creative act has a meaning which, although not transcendent, allows a form of affirma­ tion of life which can neutralize the will to destroy and the despair of the nihilist individual. As paradoxical as it sounds, Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito have demonstrated in their brilliant depiction of Iago’s black soul, the musically shat­ tering enunciation of his nihilistic creed, what can be done to counter it.

28

FERRUCCIO BUSONI

BUT WHAT MAKES VERDI IN PARTICULAR UNMISTAKABLE AND ALWAYS SHOWS HIM IN THE BEST LIGHT IS THE ADMIRABLE MASTERY OF STAGECRAFT THAT, APART FROM HIM, ONLY THE FRENCH POSSESSED. NOWHERE ARE THERE EMBARRASSING PAUSES, NOWHERE GAPS IN THE FLOW OF THE DIALOGUE; EVERYTHING WORKS SO SUPERBLY, IT ALL FLOWS SMOOTHLY, AND YET THE CHARACTERS ARE DIFFERENTIATED RIGHT DOWN TO THE LAST DETAIL AND THE MUSICAL FORM IS COMPLETELY PRESERVED.

XXX

ANDREAS LÁNG

A PERENNIAL FAVOURITE IN THE REPERTOIRE RECEPTION OF OTELLO IN VIENNA In contrast to Giuseppe Verdi’s much earlier opera Don Carlo, which was not performed on the stage of the Wiener Staatsoper until 1932, Otello, the far more modern late work by the ageing composer, very quickly found its way into the repertoire here. Just 13 months after the Milan world première, audien­ ces in Vienna were able to make the acquaintance of this opera at the opera house on the Ring on 14 March 1888.

Initially, as was customary at the time, the opera could only be seen in German, but the translation was done by none other than the famous music writer, cri­ tic and librettist Max Kalbeck. (The fact that he also wrote the understandably correspondingly laudatory review of the première in the Neue Freie Presse offers a striking example of how far the often referenced golden age of Austrian mu­ sic criticism had strayed from objective reporting.) We can doubtless no longer ascertain today whether it was the work itself, the outstanding performances by the singers and orchestra, the impres­ sive sets and costumes, or all these to­ gether that generated a lasting passion for the work in audiences.

No later than by the end of that year another 30 (!) performances had fol­ lowed that Viennese première. And in subsequent seasons the work remained Previous pages:

RACHEL WILLIS-SØRENSEN as DESDEMONA

an integral part of the repertoire, with only minor changes in the casting of the three main roles. These were per­ formed by clear audience favourites.

Alongside the celebrated Wagnerian singers Theodor Reichmann as Iago and Antonie Schläger as Desdemona (later also Santuzza), Hermann Winkelmann performed the title role. Winkelmann, one of the most significant heroic tenors of the day, seemed to have virtually ta­ ken possession of the role of Otello as in the first fifteen years he embodied the role almost every time. If those who witnessed these performances are to be believed, the word “embodied” can be taken almost literally, as unlike most of his colleagues Winkelmann did not give run-of-the-mill performances, but proved on each occasion that his acting skills were very much equal to his sin­ ging skills.

After that, theatre directors al­ ways complied with the wishes of box office stars who filled the house – and the Vienna opera was naturally no ex­ ception. In the case of Otello, the per­ formance on 22 October 1909 is one example. On that evening, Leo Slezak stepped before the audience at the opera house on the Ring to perform the role of Otello. However, the popular tenor had rehearsed the role in the original Italian

32

A P E R E N N I A L FAVO U R I T E I N T H E R E P E RT OI R E

for a booking in America, so director Felix von Weingartner (who was on the rostrum himself at the time) made an exception, much to the displeasure of many audience members. Completely out of line with practices of the day, the entire performance was sung in Italian – and this was accordingly noted in the programme. (The credit for putting on the first Viennese production of Otello in the original language therefore cle­ arly does not go to Herbert von Kara­ jan!)

“Verdi’s Otello … demands largerthan-life performers. Perhaps Wagner­ ian singers who also understand the impassioned Italian cantilena. No just man would think of looking for such a rare bird at the Volksoper.” Thus read a note in the Presse in 1922, prompted by an Otello première at the Vienna Volks­ oper on 20 January 1922. The person who evidently was not considered one of the just men was once again Felix von Weingartner, at the time director of the opera house on the Gürtel. His great love for this work caused him to succumb to the temptation of including it in the schedule at Vienna’s second opera house, despite all the prophecies of doom, and even though it could be seen at the opera house on the Ring that same season. “Director Weingart­ ner (...) seems to have overestimated the capabilities of his singers. The brass blared, the percussion boomed, the singers overdid it” was the ruthless response of the feuilleton. Neverthe­ less, almost five years later the Volks­ oper ventured another new production of the opera, but this too did nothing to establish the work in the repertoire of the house. To this day, Verdi’s Otello has been the preserve of the Wiener Staatsoper.

However, the next new production in chronological terms (on 15 December 1933), also at the house on the Ring, was not entirely convincing. Merely the fact that a new production with expensive sets was mounted despite ge­ nerally strained economic conditions brought out many critics, particularly since the décor of Clemens Holzmeis­ ter and Robert Kautsky did not always do justice to the staging requirements.

Accordingly, Julius Korngold reported on “already overly hackneyed esprit de l’escalier” that “no one really wanted.”

He also criticized Lothar Wallerstein’s changes to the text, Clemens Krauss’s at times overly restrained interpretation, Viorica Ursuleac’s murky intonation as Desdemona, Franz Völker’s Otello lacking dramatic energy and Josef Ma­ nowarda’s unconvincing villain. Never­ theless the work appeared fairly regu­ larly on the schedule until 1937.

After the invasion by the Natio­ nal Socialists, the names Wallerstein, Holzmeister and Kautsky quietly disap­peared from programmes, even though the scenery remained unchan­ ged. If one tries to read between the lines of the review in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt of a new production of Otello (21 November 1939), Viktor Pruscha’s sets must have been rather more mo­ dest. (“It was up to the singers to fill the space between the dramatic poles (…) with their art.”) The critic’s description of the quality of Heinz Kraayvanger’s performance in the title role is more explicit. He wrote: “Heinz Kraayvan­ ger sang Otello.” His praise of Hans Knappertsbusch’s interpretation is all the more persuasive: “initially conduc­ ted with fantastic temperament (...) then played with the restraint of cham­ ber music”. Paul Schöffler’s Iago and

33

ANDREAS LÁNG

Esz­ther Réthy’s Desdemona receive un­ mitigated approval. The last paragraph of the review paraphrases the rather lukewarm audience reception with the words: “The audience gradually war­ med up to the performance over the course of the evening, ultimately re­ markably judging the new production a decent success.”

On 25 March 1942, the curtain went up on the première of another new pro­ duction. With Karl Böhm on the rost­ rum, the production had an excellent Otello in every regard in Max Lorenz, performing alongside Maria Reining as Desdemona and Mathieu Ahlersmeyer as Iago. After the destruction of the opera house on the Ring and the end of the war, he moved with Oscar Fritz Schuh’s production to the Theater an der Wien, the temporary quarters of the Vienna opera, where he sang the title role in almost every performance until 1950. What Winkelmann was around the turn of the century, Max Lorenz was in the 1940s: the ideal incarnation of Vienna’s Otello. From 1945 on, his Des­ demona was generally Hilde Konetzni, Maria Reining or Ljuba Welitsch, with Paul Schöffler or Hans Hotter as Iago.

What is striking is the large number of performances of Otello: including the new production (21 December 1945), the opera was performed exactly 99 times by the time the house on the Ring opened again in November 1955. (The musical directors were generally great conductors such as Josef Krips, Rudolf Moralt or Karl Böhm.) Regardless of all artistic considerations, the advantage of this production was the practical de­ sign of the scenery, which made it pos­ sible for the sets to to be put up ready for performance in just a few hours.

This production accordingly became

an excellent last-minute substitute; as a result, more than once the programme read “Due to singer X being indisposed, today Verdi’s Otello will be performed instead of opera Y”.

After a break of nearly two years in performances of Otello, the first truly new production of the work was develo­ ped after the end of the war. Staatsoper director Herbert von Karajan worked as both stage director and music director and soon presented a number of singers making their house début at the house in Vienna. First and foremost, this was Giuseppe Zampieri (Cassio), Anselmo Colzani (Iago) and of course Mario Del Monaco in the title role. The greatest triumph however went to Leonie Rysa­ nek, whom the media even described as the “true protagonist and leading cha­ racter”.

Although the performances of Otello were more spread out over the next few decades, there were nevertheless more than 100 performances of the Karajan production by the time it was disconti­ nued in 1982. From 13 December 1964 on, the note “Production: Herbert von Karajan” became simply “after a pro­ duction” and was ultimately replaced by the word “Direction”. Of the 16 tenors who sang Otello during this time, Plá­ cido Domingo, Carlo Guichandut, James McCracken, Hans Beirer and of course Mario Del Monaco must be mentioned.

The number of Desdemonas was even larger. Twenty-five sopranos, including Sena Jurinac, Kiri Te Kanawa, Gwyneth Jones, Teresa Zylis-Gara and Leonie Ry­ sanek sang the innocent murder victim.

In addition to the previously mentio­ ned Anselmo Colzani, audiences saw Giuseppe Taddei, Paul Schöffler, Piero Cappuccilli, Tito Gobbi and Aldo Protti in the role of Iago.

34

A P E R E N N I A L FAVO U R I T E I N T H E R E P E RT OI R E

The life span of the next production was decidedly shorter. From 10 May 1987 to 28 May 2003, it was in the re­ pertoire for almost exactly 16 years with only 73 performances. The ova­ tion at the première on the other hand was possibly record-breaking. The audience cheered the protagonists for three quarters of an hour, first and fore­ most conductor Zubin Mehta, Anna Tomowa-Sintow’s Desdemona, Renato Bruson’s Iago – and, above all, Plácido Domingo’s Otello. Stephen Lewis’s conventionally opulent scenery was less successful; as several reviewers mentioned, it scarcely left room for di­ rector Peter Wood to stage a reasona­ ble production. And so for the next few years the hope was to emulate the pre­ mière and make the performances not­ hing but a “celebra­tion of brilliant sin­ gers”, as the Kronen Zeitung news­paper put it. The cast lists of the sub­sequent performances complied with this wish, to the great delight of audiences. In ad­ dition to Domingo, singers heard in the role of Otello included Wladimir Atlantow, Giuseppe Giacomini, José Cura and Clifton Forbis, as Desdemona Barbara Frittoli, Soile Isokoski, Ga­ brie­la Beňačková, Adrianne Pie­czonka, Julia Várady and Anna TomowaSintow, as Iago Piero Cappuccilli, Bernd Weikl, Ruggero Raimondi and most frequently Renato Bruson.

The next new production (25 Octo­ ber 2006) with rich detail by Christine Mielitz was entirely different from Peter Wood’s outmoded, ungainly produc­ tion. She moved the action to a kind of boxing ring, portrayed the title charac­ ter as an acclaimed sport champion and had the drama play out primarily on a revolving pedestal in the middle of the stage; as the Tiroler Tageszeitung notes,

it was “reminiscent both of a boxing ring and a stage from Shakespeare’s day”.

Mielitz also supported her interpre­ tation of Otello with video projec­tions that “illustrate the bloody carnage very well“ (Kurier). With Daniele Gatti on the rostrum, the singers at that time included the since prematurely decea­ sed exceptional tenor Johan Botha, the celebrated Krassimira Stoyanova (Desdemona) and the equally brilliant Falk Struckmann (Iago), who much to audiences’ delight also returned for la­ ter repertoire performances. By March 2018 Aleksandr Antonenko (the Otello of the following première), Peter Seif­ fert, José Cura, Roberto Alagna (“his” Desdemona was his own wife Alek­ sandra Kurzak) were seen in the title role of this production; as Desdemona Anja Harteros, Barbara Frittoli, Soile Isokoski and Olga Bezsmertna (also in the subsequent première cast), and Lado Ataneli, Franco Vassallo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Carlos Álvarez, Dalibor Jenis and Franz Grundheber as Iago.

The première of the current produc­ tion on 20 June 2019 was the 477th per­ formance of Otello at the Vienna Court Opera/Wiener Staatsoper since the first performance in Vienna. In Adrian Noble’s staging and under the baton of Myung-Whun Chung the singers in­ cluded Aleksandr Antonenko, Olga Bezsmertna and Vladislav Sulimsky.

35

GREGORY KUNDE as OTELLO

IMPRINT GIUSEPPE VERDI

OTELLO SEASON 2023/24 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Cover picture WOOL FLANNEL AND PRINTED SILK BY MAINBOCHER. (PHOTO BY CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM/GETTY IMAGES) Cover image title: ENSEMBLE WITH JACKET, SKIRT, & HANDKERCHIEF Cover concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN All performance photos by MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES All texts were taken from the première programme of the Vienna State Opera 2019. All articles were written for this programme.

English translations Andrew Smith. Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Abbreviations are not marked. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.

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