Otello at the Met

For a mere $25 I attended a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House, or rather a screening of the Metropolitan production of Verdi's Otello at the Lighthouse Cinema in Petone. I had a good cry. If you don't cry listening to the Willow song and Ave Maria in the last act you have no feel for music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMDa0Ua_KrI The production had its faults. The chorus, like a large phalanx, faced the audience and shouted at it, of the principal singers only Iago, Zeljko Lucic, the Serbian baritone was totally convincing. Latvian Alexandr Antonenko, as Otello, sang loud, in your face, but without subtlety and with little acting skill. Bulgarian Sonya Yoncheva sang with real feeling and wonderful clarity, but perhaps didn't manage to capture the young Desdemona, desperately in love with the arrogant war her, Otello. Huge glass partitions moved randomly around the stage trying to set the scene. But all this didn't matter. It was the music that mattered. After completing his most ambitious opera, Aida in 1871 and his Requiem in 1874, Verdi thought that he had retired. And then, at the age of 73, he was tempted by the text of Boito's, his librettist’s rendering of Shakespeare's Othello to write yet another opera. Boito reduced Shakespeare’s text to a quarter of its length. This focused the the story on its essentials and let the music expand and touch on emotions that words could not do justice to. Wagner has changed the way opera was perceived, operas with beautiful tunes and coloratura singing were considered old fashioned. Wagner's last opera, Parsifal had just been premièred a few years before. After that an old composer, writing a great opera in the Italian style was a major statement in support of the Italian operatic tradition. The novelty of the Metropolitan production was that Otello was not painted black. This added rather than detracted from the production. The important thing about Otello was not that he was black, Elizabethans were largely colour blind; it was only later, once slavery became big business and large number of Africans were shipped to America, that racial prejudice became a real issue, with its implication for money making. The play, but certainly the opera is about the insecurity of the outsider, Otello, a successful warrior, but not part of the establishment, not a member of the Venetian aristocracy. How could he be sure that he was not just exploited and made fun of by those born to privilege. Iago, the Machiavellian villain, with his own ambitions and jealousies works on Otello's sense of insecurity. Cassio well-born, privileged, with high office due to him as of right, was a more suitable lover of the aristocratic Desdemona. Iago could sense that the future belonged to the politician, versed in intrigue and cunning. He was ready to demolish not only the triumphant commander of the army, but also the ruling aristocratic order. The innocent victim of his scheming was the proud simple young woman, Desdemona, in love with the unsuitable outsider, Othelo. You can read a lot into this story, which has universal and timeless relevance. Verdi, in his old age, captured this in the most exquisite music of his entire life.