He’s brave, but Otello’s too much of a wimp

Otello (Royal Opera House) Verdict: Powerful production with a hole at the centre THE title role of Otello is a Leviathan of a part for a tenor. The greatest interpreters — Tamagno, Zenatello, Del Monaco, Vickers, Domingo — have possessed voices like trumpets. So how does Jonas Kaufmann fare with his clarinet tone?

Despite a brave attempt, I fear that Jonas gets eaten by the whale. He has clearly been working at his technique, but he’s like a boy sent to do a man’s job and fails to dominate either the stage or the music.

Of course, from this intelligent singer there are fine moments, especially in the great Verdian Mixed fortunes: Kaufmann and Agresta in Verdi’s Otello soliloquies, but much of his acting is of the staggering- about variety. Perhaps he worries that if he is too still, no one will notice him.

It hardly helps that his Desdemona, the wonderful Italian soprano Maria Agresta, has an unusually full tone. She overwhelms him in their duets and her great Act 4 scene, powerfully and poignantly sung, confirms her as the star of the show.

As Iago, the evil engine of Otello’s destruction, her compatriot Marco Vratogna — a late replacement — gives a well-routined, honest performance. He rather lacks subtlety and in baritone terms is a Protti rather than a Gobbi, but he effortlessly manipulates this wimp of an Otello.

I liked much of Keith Warner’s production, although it is very sombre and the graffiti at the end of Act 3 are vulgar miscalculations. Boris Kudlicka’s sets and Bruno Poet’s lighting give him the dreary ambience he presumably wants, but some of Kaspar Glarner’s costumes provide brilliance and colour.

Magnificent contributions from chorus, orchestra, secondary singers and conductor Antonio Pappano bring Verdi’s vibrant music constantly to the fore, so you often barely notice the hole at the centre of the drama.