Happy Birthday, "Otello!"

Today marks the 121st anniversary of the debut of Verdi's Otello: Feb. 5, 1887, at La Scala in Milan.

To my mind it is Verdi's greatest opera, the work of his mature genius. His librettist, Arrigio Boito, distilled Shakespeare's tragedy into its purest form. Boito provided Iago with a devilish "Credo" which Shakespeare never wrote, but which telegraphs Iago's nihilism. Watch a chilling Justino Diaz sing it here. This is what he is singing, in translation:

I believe in a cruel God who created me
Similar to Himself, and whom I name in my wrath.
From the baseness of a germ or an atom,
Basely I was born.
I am wicked
Because I am a man;
And I feel the mud of my origin in me.
Yes! This is my creed!
I believe with a firm heart, just as
The little widow in church believes,
That the evil I think, the evil that comes from me,
Is wrought by my destiny.
I believe the honest man is a mocking actor
In his face and in his heart,
That everything in him is falsehood:
His tears, kiss, gaze,
Sacrifice, and honor.
And I believe that man is the plaything of
unjust fate
From the germ of the cradle
To the worrn of the grave.
After so much derision comes Death.
And then?
And then? (long pause)
(whispering) Death is Nothingness
(shouting) And heaven an old wives' tale.
(laughter)

Currently, Placido Domingo owns the title role, and can be heard on various excellent recordings. He appears on DVD in Franco Zefirelli's lush production. It is a visual delight, but for many his idiosyncratic cutting of Desdemona's Willow song is a musical travesty. My favorite recording is conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, and features James McCracken as Otello, Gwyneth Jones as Desdemona, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Iago.

Martina Elicker has written a fascinating postmodern analysis of Shakespeare's theatrical Othello, Verdi's musical Otello, and Zeferrelli's video Otello. She observes:

This paper focuses on a critical comparison of the theme of Ot(h)ello's "otherness" as depicted in Shakespeare's play, the opera adaptation by Verdi/Boito, and the 1986 movie version by Franco Zeffirelli. The main aim of the analysis is to point out the different types of mechanisms at play in creating "otherness" in the three media: with the help of language, music, visual signs, etc. Ot(h)ello's character is clearly outlined and his life - past and present -, attitudes, religious beliefs, and cultural background are juxtaposed with those of the other characters firmly embedded in Western, Christian societies and traditions. For obvious reasons, Zeffirelli makes use of visual signs and symbols the most, at the same time drawing on (con-)textual elements of the play and the musical texture of the opera, and thus further emphasizes Ot(h)ello's outsider status among the Venetians and Cypriots. In the context of "The Unifying Aspects of Culture," it is particularly interesting to note Zeffirelli's own Italian Catholic background when discussing his selection of musical, textual, and visual signs which stress "difference", "otherness" - rather than "unity", "unification."

See. I told you it was a postmodern analysis. ; )