Invitation to the Opera: Verdi's Otello

Verdi's Otello is a persuasive example of how opera can elevate a play that's already a masterpiece. The music is rich and textured, with an expansive orchestration that's more seamless than in Verdi's earlier work. The music is also atmospheric, with a lonely melancholy in the final act.

Recorded (though not in a public performance) at La Scala, Milan in 2001, this is a compelling account of Verdi's penultimate opera, conducted by one of the leading Verdi conductors of today, and a cast led by the pre-eminent Otello of our time. It is Placido Domingo and Riccardo Muti, in the secure dramatic framework of a naturalistic production by Graham Vick, who give the performance its edge of excitement. Domingo's singing has a nervous intensity that Muti's instinctive dramatic intelligence tracks faultlessly. Leo Nucci's Iago may not have quite the presence and scale to match Domingo, but is still an immensely stylish, complex villain, while Barbara Frittoli's Desdemona is unfailingly believable and touching.