The market is not exactly short of recordings of what I regard as the
operatic masterwork
assoluta. Competition is keen, even though some
good ones seem to be out of the catalogue at the moment. Those that
are available should cover the needs of most lovers of
Otello: the legendary Toscanini; Karajan with Del Monaco, Tebaldi
and Protti; Solti with Carlo Cossutta, Margaret Price and Gabriel Bacquier;
Levine with Domingo, Scotto and Milnes; Alain Lombard with Giuseppe
Giacomini, Margaret Price and Matteo Manuguerra (a favourite of mine);
Myung-Whun Chung with Domingo, Studer and Leiferkus – and a plethora of
other studio and live recordings on CD and DVD. So what has this newcomer to
offer? Suspicions arose when I looked at the back-cover and saw recording
dates: 2007 and 2009. Why did it have to wait in the pipeline for more than
five years?
When I started listening I very soon found that I needn’t have been
worried. The recorded sound is prima – and the very opening of act I is as
good a test-track as any with wind howling, waves beating against the pier
and people shouting in despair when they see the ship fight a battle with
the sea. No, there are no gimmicks, no wind-machine, no pre-recorded sounds
of waves, not even a five-minute organ pedal bass note as in the Karajan
recording for Decca. The orchestra at full blast and the chorus screaming
out their desperation is enough to create this feeling of doomsday.
It's enough to create a spellbinding opening – Verdi knew his trade.
I had to turn up the volume a bit from my normal setting but then all the
thrill was there. The orchestra – not very well-known, at least not on
record – is excellent. Friedrich Haider on the other hand is a known
quantity as opera conductor. He had been principal conductor of the Oviedo
Filarmonia since 2004, so conductor and orchestra knew each other well. The
chorus, Orfeón Donostiarra, is regarded as the most important choral
ensemble in Spain and rarely have I heard this music – or any other dramatic
choral music for that matter – sung with such clean attack, such even and
homogenous sound. Not a single voice sticks out, which often happens with
opera-house choruses. The only disadvantage with this is possibly that the
last ounce of dramatic intensity is missing, that they may be too
well-behaved but that is a minor drawback. I gladly sacrifice that last
ounce to hear this marvellous choral body. The whole first scene is truly
marvellous. In the second act the ladies of the chorus on their own deliver
ethereal pianissimo singing, and here the admirable boys from León de Oro
turn out to be golden-toned. The dramatic end of the third act is also
excellent.
Friedrich Haider chooses sensible tempos throughout in a reading that can
be called ‘safe’ – no eccentricities, but neither is there the extra thrill
that Toscanini or Karajan (in his Decca recording) can conjure up. Much
better though a middle course; certainly an improvement on the extremely
slow tempos that Barbirolli opted for. I haven’t been able to check his
timings but my memory tells me that he managed to love the music to
death.
One of the most thrilling moments in any opera is Otello’s first entrance
when he hurls his
Esultate! towards the Cypriots – and the
audience. No one has surpassed Mario Del Monaco in the Karajan recording,
his magnificent voice dazzling like a welding flame. Robert Dean Smith
misses the effect completely. There is no explosive force, no sense of
glory, he is sorely strained and has a disturbing vibrato. Not a good start.
He later shows other qualities. He is deeply involved, though from time to
time he can seem underpowered and occasionally his tone becomes pinched.
What he has in abundance is however a broad palette of nuances and colours –
where Del Monaco is more monochrome and inclined to sing at forte and above
most of the time. It must be said though that Karajan managed to moderate
him quite a lot. In his earlier mono recording for Alberto Erede he tries to
break the sound-barrier most of the time. Robert Dean Smith, who is best
known as a Wagner specialist – I have heard his Tristan twice – excels in
finely graded nuances throughout. I would suggest readers first try his long
monologue in act III¸
Dio! Mi potevi scagliar (CD 2 tr. 4). It is
sung inwardly deploying beautiful legato yet with deep intensity – a true
portrait of an individual who is out of his senses but still tries to keep
an image of composure.
Niun mi tema (CD 2 tr. 15) is also a very credible psychological
impersonation of a man who too late realises that he has been fooled. He
sings
Oh! Gloria! Otello fu (Oh Glory! Othello’s day is done) so
recessed, so resigned and the pain is so tangible. This is a deeply
thought-through reading.
Singers like Gobbi, Taddei, Bacquier and Leiferkus have all drawn
memorable portraits of Iago. Leiferkus was possibly the most overtly evil of
them. The other three were even more dangerous in that they so skilfully hid
their true ego, wrap it in silk and entice their victim with honeyed
whispers. Romanian baritone Sebastian Catana belongs in that category as
well. His voice has a certain similarity to Piero Cappuccilli, one of the
foremost Verdi-singers of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He has the same breath
control and excellent legato and has a very expressive way with words. His
Credo (CD 1 tr.12) is truly chilling and in the long scene that
ends the act, when Iago and Otello are alone, he is venomous: the poison has
started to take its toll. His velvet and insinuating
Era la notte
(CD 1 tr. 19) finally hooks Otello and then he strategically plays his trump
card, ‘Il fazzoletto’ (the handkerchief):
Quel fazzoletto ieri … lo vidi
in man di Cassio (Yesterday I saw that handkerchief in the hand of …
Cassio) spitting out ‘Cassio’ triumphantly hissing. This is great theatre
and his slight hesitation is perfectly timed.
Italian soprano Raffaella Angeletti’s Desdemona is a real find. She has a
beautiful spinto voice in the Tebaldi mould. In the first act duet with
Robert Dean Smith the tone tends to spread a little under pressure but she
has the same feeling for nuance. In their scene in act II she shows star
quality – even more so in the long third act duet
Dio ti giocondi
(CD 2 tr. 3) where her powerful outbreak has a real Tebaldi ring. After that
I was very much looking forward to the Willow Song in act IV, and I wasn’t
disappointed. The whole scene was utterly touching and when did I hear a
more beautiful
Ave Maria?
Luis Dámaso is an excellent Cassio and the remaining cast never let the
listener down. The six recordings I listed in the first paragraph will never
be redundant and I have another half dozen
Otellos that I don’t
intend to be separated from either. That said, I am happy to be able to add
this newest competitor to my collection and I will certainly play it again
very soon.
Göran Forsling
