Word: otello
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...dramatic travels, battles and death at Missolonghi there is scarcely a word. Such a conception might have worked had Thomson been a composer of passion and power, had he been able to write music commensurate with Byron's words and deeds -- had he been, in short, the Verdi of Otello or the Berg of Wozzeck. But he wasn't. (The score, which incongruously quotes both Did You Ever See a Lassie and Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms, is like The Rake's Progress without the wrong notes.) And so there Lord Byron sits, as fresh, buoyant...
...choose from. The first of 10 CDs of highlights to be released this year is Arias, Songs & Tangos. It is a monument to his vigorous musicianship. Over time Domingo's voice has become darker and richer, his style more fluent and less mannered. The only regret: his masterly Otello, recorded for RCA and EMI, cannot be included...
...Welles made a wonderful movie -- an eccentric adaptation that is in spirit as true to Shakespeare's text as, say, Verdi's Otello. The director's brilliant conceit was to film this tale of the ebony Moor and his blond bride in images of stark chiaroscuro, the blackest black and the whitest white. No moral or visual gray tones here. Dark cloaked figures rush toward the Grand Canal, and pigeons scatter up into an angry sky. The spider-webbery of shadows casts doom across an innocent face. It is a canvas, of baroque silhouettes and diagonals rampant, that marries text...
Fortunately, this Otello is an impressive offering that should gain a place as one of the standard versions of the opera. The project was a gamble: A not-so-young Pavarotti left concerts in front of royalty and football fans to tackle the role of Otello, a notoriously difficult one, for the first time. What's more, Pavarotti brought his radiant tenor to a tragic role usually sung by deeper voices. This calculated risk almost turned to disaster when most of the principals and the conductor took ill before the performances that were to provide the material for the recording...
...turned out, the first performance was an astonishing success, and Pavarotti (who munched on pieces of apple during the choruses to keep his throat clear) sang an inspired Otello. This is what comes across on the CD: From the Esultate which marks his entry in the storm-tossed first act to his dying embrace of the martyred Desdemona, Pavarotti sings with the passion of the warrior who boils with jealousy. His lyrical voice is audibly more at ease in passages such as the love duet at the end of the first act, but he doesn't shrink from the over...