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OPERA REVIEW Desdemona's Otello October 9, 2002
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By Thomas Grey
The production of Verdi's Otello unveiled at the San Francisco Opera Wednesday evening was good, sometimes splendid, in all but one important respect, the title role. Jon Frederic West, who took over the part of Otello when the originally-cast Ben Heppner cancelled some time ago, has a creditable track record as a heroic tenor, having sung Tristan, Siegfried, Tannhäuser, Bacchus (in Ariadne) and indeed Otello at major houses throughout Europe, as well as at Chicago and the Metropolitan. And at its best, his vocal performance on Wednesday reached a “creditable” level in parts of the third and fourth acts, more so in the projection of Otello's abjection and despair than of the vanishing remnants of his noble valor.
However, Otello's famously exacting entrance in Act 1 (“Esultate!”), hard on the heels of Verdi's furious choral-orchestral tempest, was distinctly inauspicious (however, West was ill served by being placed high up near the back of the stage, on the ramparts of the Cypriot fortress). And for most of acts 1 and 2 the voice remained less than heroic — thin and unfocussed. Short and spherical West's stage presence in no way compensated for these vocal limitations. Writhing on the steps of the assembly-hall during his fainting fit at the close of Act 3 — the effect was distressingly tragi-comic, suggesting something more like the struggles of Gregor Samsa in Kafka's Metamorphosis. When Emilio Sagi's ill-advised direction had West's ungainly form bounce across the whole length of the stage to let Emilia into the bedroom just moments after strangling Desdemona, the otherwise beautiful and gripping atmosphere built up over this climactic scene, musically and visually, was briefly obliterated.
But fortunately there is more to Otello than the title role, and the rest was largely first-rate, further aided by West's improvement in later acts and the depth of feeling he brought to some key moments. As Desdemona, Patricia Racette continued the series of superb contributions she has made to the San Francisco Opera since launching her career here more than a decade ago. Her voice and stage manner perfectly captured the combination of demureness and strength that characterize the heroine. (Shakespeare's Othello addresses her as his “fair warrior,” after all; and although Boito reversed and conventionalized that exchange within the Act 1 duet, he and especially Verdi do highlight Desdemona's moral strength and determination, above and beyond the delicate frailty more typical of the victimized operatic heroine.)
Racette summoned this strength in soaring over the vast ensemble of the Act 3 finale, where the amazed cast reacts in horror at Otello's abusive treatment of his wife. But it was above all the calm, elegiac tones of her “Willow” song and Ave Maria that made Racette's performance the outstanding achievement of the evening. Even the softest notes were sumptuous, creamy-textured, and perfectly supported, while just a hint of quivering tone added the right touch of pathos at certain moments. Zack Brown's set had Desdemona's room hung with long gauze curtains (borrowed from the loggia of Act 2) hanging between the wide arches of the balcony. The luminous effect of these softly undulating curtains, “moonlit” against a black star-studded sky, created an ambience at once entrancing and ominous. The resulting chiaroscuro complemented the atmosphere of the “Willow" song in an unusually effective way, not simply reinforcing its darkly oppressive tones. (One minor cavil might be Racette's diction; “Cantiamo” emerged consistently like “Andiamo,” for instance.) Sergei Leiferkus as Iago was the one veteran member of the cast, reprising the role he has sung frequently for a decade or more. He has a knack for sneering villainous baritone parts, no question, commanding an oily hypocritical cantabile as well as all the requisite fierce and vicious accents. Thus he can inhabit both the inside and outside of Iago with equal finesse. In Iago's gentle insinuations (e.g., the factitious account of Cassio's guilty dreaming, “Era la notte”) he is exemplary. He also highlighted aptly the goat-like bleating of the chromatically sliding line, “bevi,” in the refrain of Iago's drinking song.)
Leiferkus does not generally impress as a big voice, though, and I would have appreciated an extra degree of melodramatic intensity in parts of Iago's nihilistic “Credo,” especially given the forceful framing by snarling winds and brass under conductor Donald Runnicles. Still, conductor, orchestra, and baritone achieved one perfect moment of collaboration in its closing measures, from Leiferkus's lyrical growling of “al verme dell'avel” to the rhetorical pause on “E poi?” (i.e., “what follows after death?”) that twice interrupts the hushed orchestral refrain. The pregnant fermata after the second of these, stretched here to the limit, and the diabolical outburst that punctuates the number made for a breathtaking conclusion to this famous gloss by Boito and Verdi on Shakespeare's villain. The rest of the cast was generally strong. Brian Anderson, as Roderigo, rallied around quickly after choking a bit on his very first lines in the opening storm-scene. As Cassio, tenor Raymond Very had a light, ingratiating tone appropriate to the part. Both as singer and as actor he integrated himself ably in dialogues and ensembles, as in the scherzando trio scene in which Iago stage-manages the evidence of Desdemona's handkerchief. Catherine Cook (like Racette and Brian Anderson, a graduate of the S. F. Opera young artist programs) made the most of Emilia's few opportunities for pathos in supporting Desdemona's final moments and confronting Otello afterwards. Bass Eric Owens brought a rich-hued dignity to the Venetian ambassador Lodovico (who has more to sing than one generally remembers); likewise Philip Skinner as Montano, though perhaps unduly stiff even for this undramatic role.
Costumes and set designs (Zack Brown) for this production, hailing from the Washington Opera, are wholly traditional, but by no means lacking in original, thoughtful touches. The massive walls, towers, and other components of the castle-fortress from which Otello governs the Venetian colony of Cyprus reinforce a sense in which, even having escaped the political and social confinement of Venice, Otello and Desdemona remain subject to an oppressive social order that will play some part in their undoing. In particular, an iron grille or portcullis screening off the back of the stage (stairs and assembly-hall) from the front in Act 3 creates a prison-like image, thanks especially to Thomas Munn's nuanced lighting schemes. The symbolic ramifications of the image (Otello as a prisoner of his own mind, his jealousy, and Iago's machinations thereof) are cleverly reinforced as we observe Iago eavesdropping, plotting, and otherwise interfering from behind this grate, occasionally disappearing into the hidden regions behind and above. The chiaroscuro effects mentioned with regard to the scene in Desdemona's bedchamber are a signature throughout, starting with the vividly lit tempest that opens the opera. The “Fuoco di gioia” chorus finds each singer holding a single candle rather than around a bonfire. Left on stage during the final duet scene of Act 1, this assembly of candles mirrors the emerging stars above and the shimmering light of their many small flames nicely echoes the effects of Verdi's instrumentation in this lushest of all his orchestral backdrops. The same array of candles resurfaced in Desdemona's room in Act 4, suggesting a kind of sacred altar at which she is to offer her Ave Maria, or at which she herself will be sacrificed. (This meant, however, far too many “flaming ministers” even to consider extinguishing, as per Othello's speech in Shakespeare.) Apart from the miscalculations in handling West's Otello, Emilio Sagi directed the cast adeptly; the drunken brawl in Act 1 was impressively fluid, thanks to “fight director” Jonathan Rider. Runnicles and the opera orchestra brought out the sumptuous range of colors in score, doing full justice to all the refinements of the late Verdian orchestration. Runnicles' tempos were characteristically brisk in places, such as the “kiss” music sealing the Act 1 love-duet. Still, he didn't hesitate to give the great Act 3 finale-ensemble its due breadth and grandiosity, and the “Willow” song and Ave Maria (truly the outstanding moment of the production) did not feel in the least rushed.
(Thomas Grey is Associate Professor of Music at Stanford University. He is author of Wagner's Musical Prose: Texts and Contexts, and editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Opera Handbook on The Flying Dutchman as well as the Cambridge Companion to Wagner.)
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Patricia Racette (Desdemona)