OTELLO

Composer Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Arrigo Boito based on the play of the same name Othello by William Shakespeare.

Opera in four acts (1887)

In Italian. With surtitles in German and English.

Like an outcry, the elemental force of the orchestra shatters the silence; from one moment to the next, the storm rages off the coast of Cyprus. The wind whips, lightnings cut the overturned sky: Giuseppe Verdi anticipated the turmoil in the hearts of his characters in the revolting nature. His penultimate opera, with which he took the music-dramatic floor again after a long creative hiatus, grabs the listener by the throat and doesn't let go until the inevitable end. How Otello, the successful general, becomes entangled in Jago's web of intrigue; how the sinister seed of jealousy flourishes and begins to corrode Otello's love for his wife Desdemona on their wedding day; how Desdemona, "although she suspects or senses that this disaster is coming and that Otello is in a position to kill her out of jealousy, nevertheless insists" (Amélie Niermeyer) - With his Otello , Verdi created an operatic drama the likes of which had never been seen before in a more succinct, direct, intense and beautiful form and which remains unsurpassed to this day..