Classical Music | Tenor

Recorded on 12/31/1969, uploaded on 04/09/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

With the success of Aida, Giuseppe Verdi planned to end his career as one of Italy’s most successful operatic composers. Verdi’s publisher, Guilio Ricordi, however, thought the composer’s retirement premature, a waste of his talents and even more importantly, of profits. Thus, Ricordi set out to coax him out of retirement. Knowing that only an impressive libretto with the proper dramatic elements could tempt Verdi to compose again, Ricordi enlisted the aid of Arrigo Boito to craft a suitable libretto from William Shakespeare’s play Othello and an outline of the libretto was shortly thereafter presented to Verdi. Though interested, Verdi initially displayed skepticism towards the project and little work was accomplished. However, once Verdi realized Boito’s abilities as a librettist, he became increasingly more dedicated to the project.

Aspects and preparation of the opera, which originally was to be titled Iago after the play’s villain, were kept a secret right up until its premiere, and Verdi even maintained the right to cancel the performance at the last minute. However, word of a new opera by the retired Verdi inevitably reached the public creating a buzz of expectancy. The premiere, on February 5, 1887 at La Scala, nearly 15 years to the day after that of Aida, was an outstanding success with Verdi giving twenty curtain calls at its conclusion.

Considered today to be his most dramatic and mature opera, Otello is somewhat different in approach than its predecessors. Verdi, to a degree, adopted the practices of Richard Wagner in doing away with the standard set-pieces of recitatives and arias. Though, the distinctions are still more discernible in Otello than in any of the works of his German counterpart. Furthermore, the orchestra in Otello also plays a much larger role than in Verdi’s previous operas, being here elevated above the role of mere accompaniment to an important aspect in the portrayal of the narrative.

Hopelessly entrapped by Iago’s machinations in Act IV, Otello believes his wife, Desdemona, to have been unfaithful to him with Cassio. Silently, Otello enters Desdemona’s chambers and awakens her with three kisses. She pleads to God for mercy, for herself and her husband, while Otello accuses her of infidelity and condemns her to death. Desdemona begs Otello to call on Cassio to justify her innocence, but believing Cassio dead, Otello states it’s too late and strangles his wife. Moments later, Otello learns the truth: that Iago was the mastermind behind all the evil that has come upon him and that indeed his wife was innocent. Overcome with grief, Otello sings his final aria Niun mi tema (“That none fear me”). He laments over the body of his dead wife, reminiscing that just before he killed her, he had kissed her. Realizing that he has murdered his wife unjustly, he pulls a dagger from his robe and stabs himself (Ho un’arma ancor! / “I still have a weapon”), while the others try to stop him. With his last breaths, Otello drags himself to Desdemona, longing for one final kiss (Un altro bacio / “One last kiss”). He kisses her then dies lying next to her as the music fades slowly over a long tonic pedal in E major, infused with harmonies of the parallel minor and a grief-stricken appearance of a lower second scale degree, borrowed from the Phrygian mode, leading to the final chords of the opera.        Joseph DuBose