November 2010: Transcription of a fabulous Otello review from BBC Radio 3

New Releases: Verdi’s Otello

BBC Radio 3 CD Review, Saturday 20 November 2010 [Transcription]

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Geoffrey Smith joins Andrew McGregor to discuss new and recent releases of opera recordings…

[Following a review of Cosi fan tutti re-release]

AM: Well almost 3 decades later, here he [Colin Davis] is in a recording, a very different opera indeed, Verdi’s Otello live at the Barbican.

Geoffrey, that opening storm [GS: Oh!] really does set us up for what happens.

GS: You can’t get more live than that. Yes it’s a tremendous sort of exclamatory stroke, and er it’s the same kind of thing, as you say in a very different mode, that Sir Colin brought to Cosi, because the whole thing just feels so alive! And in the best sense. I mean yeah, big acoustics, make the most of the effects, the orchestra banging away, but the dramatic shape he makes is so constant and clear and engaging. It just feels like everybody involved is participating wholly in the excitement of this piece of music theatre. It must have been a great thing to be part of.

AM: There’s another reason why there’s a sense of excitement about it, and that’s that there are two very notable debuts. First of all Gerald Finley as Iago for the first time, and a remarkable stand-in, Simon O’Neill the New Zealand tenor

GS: Yeah very late notice. You were saying that it was even later notice than I thought

AM: Well I think it was just a day’s notice. He’d studied the role of Otello with Domingo, but as far as I know he’d never sung it in public, so

GS: That’s astonishing

AM: Isn’t it. And yet, here he is, two concerts, first two concerts in the role and it comes out on disc months later

GS: Well, it has that feeling of the excitement of discovery for him, really throwing himself at the part, but with complete control and musicianship.

GS: And you couldn’t have a better pairing than him with Gerald Finley, who’s a tremendous singing actor, and his Iago’s scary! I mean the scene we’re gonna hear is when Iago is telling Otello he was with Cassio, Cassio was asleep and he seemed to be having this erotic dream involving congress, or at least the hope of congress with Desdemona, and of course Otello is shattered by this, and Iago says “Well it’s just a dream” and Otello says “it’s a dream that reveals an act”. And then Iago says “Oh and by the way that handkerchief Desdemona gave to you, I saw it with Cassio, he has it”. And of course Otello goes right up the wall. Furious, furious. All that military command and intensity is just released in terms of vengeance. And they’re both absolutely terrific, and the orchestra is fabulous. The intensity of the scene, beginning with Iago’s seductive malice…

Music – The end of Act 2 Scene V: from Iago “Un sogno che può dar forma di prova ad altro indizio”

GS: Fabulous!

AM: Isn’t that fantastic. Otello and Iago joining in the vow of vengeance at the end of the second act of Verdi’s Otello recorded live in concert at the Barbican in London in December 2009. And so much of this is about those two male leads, and the tension and the fury and the emotion they generate, but the orchestra [GS: Oh it’s both] is critical isn’t it?

GS: It is. The whole thing is tremendous, the way they work up the foursome, what you want in any production like this is the sense of it being alive, with the music theatre generated on all sides feeding back into each other. There’s such presence about it.

AM: Something I read… Gerald Finley in interview, saying about his character, he doesn’t see Iago as a villain as such, and he’s usually described as the villainous Iago isn’t he, and I think they even do in the booklet notes for this LSO live production, but he says he’s somebody on an adventure, he believes in pushing things as far as he possibly can, and this comes through to me in the singing. It’s not a sort of typical 2D villain.

GS: I think that’s true, I think that’s true, and he – at the end of course Iago refuses to identify a motive, he refuses to say “I did this because…” in Shakespeare’s, everybody’s nailing down motives but he just says “this is what I do”, and in a curious way the duplicity almost harks back to Cosi with wanting to set up an uncomfortable situation. In Otello’s situation it’s malicious and evil beyond speech but it still comes from a kind of feeling, not quite a kind of play, just wanting to see what will happen, you know.

AM: And against these two potent male leads what about Desdemona because she could almost disappear in a cast like this couldn’t she – Anne Schwanewilms

GS: She’s very good, sometimes I think it’s a little pale, partly in comparison to all that firepower that the men are generating, but also that’s the kind of part it is. I think it must be dangerous to be playing an ingénues and trying to avoid sounding ingenuous. This is her singing the Ave Maria of Desdemona before she’s about to go to bed, and she prays to the Virgin, but she also prays for all the weak and helpless people in the world, which as we know all too well includes her with the catastrophe that’s about to ensue

Music – Act 4 scene II: Desdemona “Ave Maria, piena di grazia…”

AM: Enter Otello, with a scimitar, from a secret door [GS: Mmmm]. We’ve just heard Anne Schwanewilms as Desdemona singing her Ave Maria, prayers before bedtime and a premonition of her own death. And beautiful accompaniment Geoffrey

GS: Fabulous string playing conducted by Sir Colin… and it’s interesting [AM: And he was singing in the background you could hear him in duets with Anne Schwanewilms] so engaged, so involved in it all. And it’s the complete picture, because in addition to all that heaving brass with the men, then you’ve got this whole other range of feeling and characterisation. He can do it all. And it’s a wonderful recording and a wonderful testament of and to this tremendous opera and performance – it must have been great to be at the Barbican and thank God you can get it on CD

AM: And it does sound fantastic doesn’t it [GS: It does] the dynamic range they’ve captured is tremendous, the recording quality is excellent, it’s good in surround as well. They’ve added, I assume the digital effects, the thunder and the cannon, in the Barbican at the time, but it doesn’t say.

It sounds as though it’s going to be an expensive week for you Geoff [laughter]

GS: Yes I’m afraid it is.

One thing that’s suddenly occurred to me, particularly after the Otello Iago duet we played, I sort of wish they’d left the applause in, because there’s this big gap where nothing happens and you want the house to fall in, which it obviously did with people standing on their seats and cheering… but it’s a small point

AM: It’s funny, it can go either way with applause [GS: Yes it can] sometimes it’s just wrong and you wish it wasn’t there after repeated listening, but other times you miss it and I think you’re absolutely right at the end of the second act there it would have been great. That sense of liveness that you get.

GS: Completely live. And as we were saying, it isn’t just a question of acoustic, it’s a sense of the presence of performance, and the engagement

AM: Well it’s on two hybrid SACDs, LSO Live, Verdi’s Otello, budget price.

Click photo for performance details