A HOT-AND-COLD 'OTELLO' MAKING WAVES   
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Oct. 9-16,  2009
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 35
             Verdi’s “Otello” is not only a great opera. It is also the most successful of all the adaptations of Shakespeare plays to the musical-vocal stage.
            The S.F. Opera brought back this favorite (now for it 17th season here), giving the new Music Director Nicola Luisotti’s first crack at the work on this side of the Atlantic. Between Luisotti lighting up his pit orchestra stalwarts, and the bigger-than-life Johan Botha in the title role, a rather mediocre show won distinction when it opened on Nov. 8.
            You can usually count on one hand (or perhaps a pair of thumbs) the number of viable Otellos in the world; the Pavarotti-sized Botha from South Africa is one of them. Though no better an actor than the rest of the cast, Botha handled the volcanic tragic role without strain, from one extreme to the other: From the robust shipwreck emergence of the triumphant opening scene to the subtlety of soft lyricism in the love duet with Desdemona.
            Botha has of course a much heavier voice than Pavarotti, eminently suited to this pseudo-Wagnerian role pitted against a powerful orchestra. 
            The machinations of the malevolent Iago are astutely woven through this drama. Verdi’s librettist astutely cut back Otello’s many assurances of Iago’s good character, assurances that make him seem unduly naïve in the play.  So the four-act opera attains greater credibility and compactness, now squeezed into just three hours with a single intermission. To make possible the elimination of the tedious intermissions,  the Peter Hall production uses just a single three-story set suggesting a plaza within a large building, with occasional décor added as needed.
            I think today there is still validity to the comment by composer Richard Strauss back in the 1920s: “There are no lighting  designers nowadays, only darkening designers.” Such was the format for this modern 2001 “Otello”  as well; I’d have added a seeing-eye dog to the cast to enable Desdemona and Otello to find each other in the gloom.
            The plot of course plays out in a tightly packed crucible.  The resentful and racist Iago carries out a shrewd set of attacks to destroy rivals (Roderigo, Cassio) and ultimately to bring down his general with calumny, playing on the Moor’s jealousy and sense of racial insecurity---all without ever wielding a weapon..  
            The other principals fell short of expectations. The Desdemona of soprano Zvetelina  Vassileva showed little of the youthful, lucid-voice lyricism called for, and neither the Willow Song nor the Ave Maria with death impending proved moving. And while baritone Marco Vratogna sang Iago with a penetrating, authoritative voice, his manner was more like that of a petty bureaucrat going about his function with requisite unemotional efficiency. Not even his Credo moved the house to ovations.
            The orchestra under Luisotti was superb and responsive, bringing out the many abrupt turns  of mood and key change. And at pianissmo, it was downright heavenly.
            The biggest trick in this whole production was to bring off the opening shipwreck scene---a phenomenal dramatic tour de force---without sails, water, or ship. The trick: Officers standing on  a bridge lookout, with the chorus below surging and ebbing like the  storm-swept sea itself. Clever! 
            The setting was updated to the 18th century---a moderate innovation, intermediate between the authentic setting in the mighty Venetian empire and the ludicrous avant-gardism of the Los Angeles Opera’s take of two seasons ago.
             OTELLOS RECALLED---The most electric of all previous Otellos on the S.F. Opera House stage was the 1983 one where the tenor lost his voice and canceled the same day of the opening. Otello tenors being rarer than modest maestros, the whole house of cards threatened to fall apart until the indefatigable Placido Domingo was contacted in New York. He flew out on a chartered jet, applying makeup while aboard, and arrived to sing gloriously before a grateful full house for a much-delayed 10 PM curtain. He got to bed about 3:30, and at dawn arose to catch a flight back to his New York rehearsals. I will never witness a more exciting evening of theater. (Review updated 11/26/09.)
                     Verdi’s “Otello,” in Italian, with supertitle English translations. S.F. Opera, through Dec. 2. For info: (415) 864-3330, or go online. 

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2009
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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