| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 16-Jan-2013 Leeds Grand Theatre | New production of Verdi's Otello from Opera North |
 Few operas begin as arrestingly as Verdi’s Otello; no overture here – or, indeed, the first act of Shakespeare’s play. Instead, in a single galvanising orchestral outburst a terrific storm is set in motion, underpinned by the most gratingly dissonant of pedals in the lowest reaches of the organ.Read full review... | |
| 27-Oct-2012 Lincoln Center: Metropolitan Opera House | The Met's Otello in the cinema |
 The devil, they say, has all the best lines. In yesterday's performance of Verdi's Otello at the Met, the villain was simply sensational. Falk Struckmann's delivery of Jago's Credo in un Dio crudel (“I believe in a cruel God”) was a masterpiece of nihilism, combining power and richness of voice with a tone of pure, matter of fact evil. Throughout the opera, Struckmann avoided overacting: he simply let Boito's and Shakespeare's words do the talking, giving them weight and character through his singing voice.
Read full review... | |
| 12-Jul-2012 Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Shakespeare Sung: Otello at Covent Garden |
 KENTON.jpg) Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito's Otello is renowned as one of the few truly successful Shakespearean operas, and while it's mostly a masterpiece on its own terms rather than Shakespeare's – countless scenes and characters are cut, and the very Verdian drinking song goes on far longer than you'd probably expect – there remains a hint of the brilliance of characterisation with which Shakespeare's play is filled. It is a true operatic tragedy, and Otello's decline is devastating in its effect.
Read full review... | |
| 31-Mar-2012 National Theatre | Otello in Munich: Everything Opera Should Be |
 Wilfried Hösl IMG_6954.jpg) Otello is usually considered to be Verdi’s most mature opera. It was one of the last ones he wrote, the result of a plot by his publisher Riccordi and the conductor Franco Faccio to draw him out of early retirement. The result is a work which combines all the aspects of Verdi’s earlier operatic style with Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. Unlike the operas up to Aida, Otello does away with the strict “aria-recitative” division, moving towards the more fluid style of Wagner.Read full review... | |
