Programs · Episode

VERDI: Otello

Program: At the Opera
Aired: Saturday, November 6, 2021 @ 6:00 pm
Hosted by Lisa Simeone

Leave it to Verdi to take a classic tragedy by Shakespeare and, if anything, make it even more powerful and heartrending. The libretto is by Arrigo Boito, who also collaborated on another of Verdi's great Shakespeare operas, Falstaff.  On At the Opera we'll explore the drama in two recordings made more than four decades apart. One features tenor Carlo Cossutta in the title role, with soprano Margaret Price as Desdemona, and the other stars Jonas Kaufmann and Federica Lombardi.

MORE ABOUT THE OPERA:

In Otello, Giuseppe Verdi's penultimate opera, and in Othello, the Shakespeare tragedy it’s based on, there's a key element that has always presented special challenges in both theaters and opera houses — and one that can be especially fraught for modern producers and performers.  It's the element of race.

In both dramas, the title character is described as a Moor — a Black man — while the opera’s other major characters are white Europeans.  In Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello’s race is a major element right from the start. That's when the drama’s villain, Iago, uses Othello’s blackness in an ugly effort to revile and demean him, and to undermine him with Brabantio, the father of Othello's bride, Desdemona. In Verdi's opera, Otello’s race is a less overt, and perhaps less vital factor.  Yet it’s a factor none the less. Thus the challenges presented when either drama is staged. 

In the theater, and at the movies, Shakespeare’s Othello has sometimes been portrayed by Black performers, including the 19^th-century English actor Ira Aldridge, as well as Paul Robeson, Laurence Fishburne, and Jessika D. Williams. Yet any number of legendary white actors have also played the role — typically wearing dark makeup.  They include Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Orson Welles and John Gielgud.  But, what about in Verdi’s opera?

Well, if you look at the many recordings of Otello, along with famous productions of the opera, you’ll find album covers and photos featuring some of the world’s most famous tenors in the title role — and again, often wearing dark makeup. 

By now, having a singer play Verdi's Otello in blackface is a non-starter. One obvious solution is to cast Black tenors in the role, and many have sung it, including Russell Thomas, Howard Haskin, and Michael Austin.  Yet Otello is one of the most beautiful and challenging of all tenor roles.  So, it's inevitable that great tenors of all races and nationalities will be determined to sing it, and that audiences will want to hear them. So, how to proceed?

One approach was seen a few years back at the Royal Opera House in London, and in a 2020 recording that grew from that production.  In both, the lead role was sung to great acclaim by one of opera’s biggest stars, Jonas Kaufmann, a white tenor from Germany — and with no dark makeup in sight.  Thus, in those presentations of Verdi’s opera, Otello was white. 

So, what happens when Otello’s race is removed — at least visually — as a factor in the searing tragedy of Verdi’s opera?  Does the opera lose something? Yes, obviously so.  Race is a crucial element of the original story, driving the relationships between its characters, and the shocking extremity of their actions.  But is there anything to be gained? Perhaps. Something we see, and hear, in those characters, in the music that portrays them, and ultimately, in ourselves.

With Othello, Verdi created a drama in which the vital emotions of the characters — their passions and resentments, their love and envy, their joys and agonies — are so essential to the human experience, that through the sheer power of the music, we might just begin to feel them as rooted not so much in the characters' race, but in their humanity.

On At the Opera, host Lisa Simeone shares that 2020 recording starring Jonas Kaufmann.  He's joined by soprano Federica Lombardi as Desdemona, and baritone Carlos Alvarez as Iago.  We'll hear that one for the opera's final two acts.  For Acts One and Two, we'll sample a recording from 1977, with tenor Carlo Cossutta, soprano Margaret Price, and baritone Gabriel Bacquier.

FEATURED RECORDINGS:

Georg Solti, conductor
Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera Chorus
CAST: Carlo Cossutta (Otello); Margret Price (Desdemona); Gabriel Bacquier (Iago); Petr Dvorsky (Cassio); Kurt Equiluz (Roderigo); Jane Berbié (Emilia)
(Decca 460756)

Antonio Pappano, conductor
Orchestra and Chorus of the Santa Cecelia Academy, Rome
CAST: Jonas Kaufmann (Otello); Federica Lombardi (Desdemona); Carlos Alvarez (Iago); Liparit Avetisyan (Cassio); Carlo Bosi (Roderigo); Virginie Verrez (Emilia)
(Sony 19439707932)

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