A Moor with power and passion aplenty
JUST one question hangs in the air as this magnificent revival of Verdi’s most concise, punchy drama proceeds from one great moment to the next under Antonio Pappano’s inspired baton.
In the initial run of performances in 2017, American tenor Gregory Kunde eclipsed the underpowered Jonas Kaufmann, who was unfairly featured on the first night and the DVD. Now Kunde has the role to himself.
The only tenor I have ever heard sing the high F in Bellini’s I Puritani, the burly Illinois man used to be a bel canto specialist, but his voice has filled out and he has no trouble with Verdi’s most fiendishly demanding role, in which Otello has to exert great force from his entrance onwards.
As his nemesis Iago, he has a worthy antagonist in Spanish baritone Carlos Alvarez, who is also in heroic form. Both are superb actors and you believe in them totally as the web of Iago’s deceit tightens on Ermonela Jaho’s touchingly sung Desdemona — her Act 4 scene is almost unbearably affecting.
The lesser roles are thoughtfully cast, too, and we have an unusually effective Cassio in British tenor Freddie De Tommaso. When the chorus are in such rampant shape, it is a shame one of their contributions to Act 2 is cut back by Pappano.
The pachyderm looming on the patio is the ‘problem’ of Otello’s ethnicity. It is part of Shakespeare’s (and librettist Boito’s) scheme that ‘the Moor’ represents ‘the other’.
To have him as white as everyone else loses a layer of drama. No one is asking him to do a Justin Trudeau or an Olivier caricature, but surely some concession to darker makeup can be made?
Keith Warner’s production is almost too dark and has a few silly touches but is wearing well. With three such superb singers, a live recording should be made.