OTELLO (Wiener Staatsoper)*****

  

By Megan 

Link: https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/734c2237-ebe1-4cdd-91e5-498327ce194a/play

Available until: 4^th February at about 6pm

I don’t always know why I like this story so much when such terrible things happen but I do love it a lot and I think Verdi’s opera tells the story of Shakespeare’s play really well.

Arrigo Boito is the librettist and he has made it shorter and cut several characters but he has kept the character of the opera. The only character who is missing who I really see as a main character is Bianca and she actually has quite a small role in the play. I suppose really she’s not important in the play because of what she’s like, she’s important because Cassio needs to have a girlfriend for Iago’s plot to work. So in the opera she does exist but she’s someone Iago and Cassio talk about, not someone who actually appears.

Verdi’s music is really exciting. When I think of Othello, I think more of the individual characters, but Verdi has written some really dramatic choruses which really add to the idea of Othello being in charge of a whole group of people and it really shows how many people will be affected by everything that happens in the opera. There are other people in the play too but you really feel that in the opera because of the way Verdi has composed for the chorus. Graeme Jenkins is the conductor and he takes the orchestra through all the different powerful emotions of the play. The scene where Cassio gets drunk almost makes me want to laugh because it’s like the orchestra laughing at him but there are other bits when I wanted to cry because the music was so sad.

I think Christine Mielitz is the director. The credits list says she did the staging but I don’t think she was the set designer because Christian Floeren did furnishings which sounds even more like set design and I looked Ms Mielitz up and it says she’s a director. There actually aren’t many furnishings. I think Ms Mielitz sees this as an opera which is about people, not places. There is a brilliant storm effect at the start but mostly the staging seems to be much more about creating different spaces which are different sizes and shapes and filling the space with emotion.

The stage is very dark. This makes sense because dark things happen and even though it is difficult to see what is happening sometimes, Rudolf Fischer’s lighting is sometimes in different colours which makes the stage look frightening and beautiful at the same time which is exactly what the story is. In the play, Shakespeare’s language is beautiful. In the opera, Verdi’s music is beautiful. But it is also a very frightening story. The direction, set and lighting all show that.

I was a bit disappointed when I found out Roberto Alagna was playing Otello. I don’t mean that in a rude way but I would like to see Otello played by a person of colour. But he does sing the role really well and he’s a really strong, powerful Otello who always has a hint of violence in him. I’m not sure if it would be okay to write that if he was played by a person of colour. It might sound really bad. But it works really well to play Otello as being a bit dangerous. This shows in Mr Alagna’s acting as well as in his powerful tenor.

Desdemona is played by Mr Alagna’s real life wife Aleksandra Kurzak. She is a lovely, beautiful, innocent Desdemona. She’s loyal and loving and quite intelligent too but very trusting so she didn’t see what Jago (that’s the German spelling, it’s spelled Iago in Italian but pronounced Yargo) was up to. She has a really beautiful soprano which has the strength and power to sing with Mr Alagna but there is still something about it that seems very light and sweet.

Jago is played by Dalibor Jenis and he is so evil! He is really intimidating and his voice is really dark and menacing. He is really good. I think his Jago is so hypnotic, people don’t notice he’s evil. Antonio Poli is a sweet Cassio but he does go into things without thinking about it first. I’m not sure he’d be a brilliant leader yet but I don’t think there is anyone else. He has a lovely voice and I can see why Desdemona wants to look after him. I am sure she is not interested in him in any other way. You can see how much she loves Otello. Leonardo Navarro plays Roderigo and he sings very nicely but he is totally under Jago’s spell. Ilseyar Khayrullova plays Emilia. She has a lovely mezzo and I think she is quite mysterious. She is interesting because you don’t quite know how much she knows and whose side she is really on.

I love this opera a lot and even if you don’t usually watch opera you might like it if you like Shakespeare’s play.