Otello

“ Verdi has felt the moods of his poet and made them his own. The moods, the character-painting, are progressive; Otello, Iago, grow from act to act. The simple-hearted, trusting general with his agonized cry, “Miseria mia,” develops into a savage thirsting for blood; “Sangue, sangue!” he howls; he sees blood; the multitudinous music is incarnadine with it. And it is all vocal, it is written for the human voice; the voice, not the orchestra, is the centre of gravity in this astounding drama. ”

“ I watched him, studied him attentively, as the opera swept on to its violent climax—the smothering to death of Desdemona—by the enraged Otello. After the final curtain, while the audience was recalling and applauding the singers, I noticed he looked a little wild about the eyes; a sort of inward brooding.
Was it possible that he had grasped the significance of the story, as it had been unfolded before him on the stage? Could the climax of the opera put ideas into his head beyond his purely natural instincts? ”

“ Otello, a lyric drama in four acts, with a book by Arrigo Boito, proved the second of the composer's matured period works. It was on the 5th February 1887 that Milan—Otellopolis, as it had been for the nonce christened—was all astir because that Otello was to be positively performed. Soon after daybreak the whole city was a mass of mixed, excited humanity—faces known and unknown from [Pg 178] every part of the world—all bent on one eternal theme, Verdi and Otello. ”

“ And when Otello comes on and declares her to be his wife and Elmiro in his rage exclaims: “Empia! ti maledico!” and which Lablache did in a manner most splendid while Desdemona falls at his feet. The Duet between Iago and Otello in the 2nd act which Tamburini and Rubini sang most beautifully. The duet between 112Roderigo and Otello which follows it and which was likewise beautifully sung. When Desdemona enquires from the people if Otello (who had fought with Roderigo) still lives, and when she exclaims in delight: “Altro non chiede il cor,” and which Grisi did in a most splendid manner ”

“ Outside of such special occasions, and in the absence of the leather-lunged Tamagno, Otello has always been received with curiosity, with interest, with respect, with [Pg 501] admiration, but without enthusiasm and, generally speaking, without appreciation. ”

“ Otello was produced on February 5, 1887, at La Scala, Milan. That it was a brilliant success is not artistically very significant. Verdi to the Milanese was something less than a god and more than a composer. Its first performance at the Lyceum Theatre, London, in July, 1889, and at the Paris Opéra on October 12, 1894, were both gala occasions, and the enthusiasm which greeted it may safely be interpreted in part as a personal tribute to the venerable composer. ”

“ Lady Flora dined here. At a 1⁄4 past 7 we went to the opera with dear Lehzen and Lady Flora. It was Rossini’s opera seria of Otello in 3 acts. The characters were: Desdemona, Mdlle. Grisi, who looked beautiful and sung most exquisitely and acted beautifully. She personates the meek and ill-treated Desdemona in a most perfect and touching manner. Elmiro (a Venetian patrician and father to Desdemona) , Signor Lablache who sang and acted beautifully.... The finest parts are: the song which Otello sings in the 1st scene of the 1st act, and which Rubini sang beautifully. ”

“ On the occasion of her benefit the same season, the opera being "Otello," Mme. Pasta essayed the daring experiment of singing and playing the rôle of the Moor, Mile. Sontag singing Desdemona. Though the transposition of the music from a tenor to a mezzo-soprano voice injured the effect of the concerted pieces, the passionate acting redeemed the innovation. In the last act, where she, as Otello, seized Desdemona and dragged her by the hair to the bed that she might stab her, the effect was one of such tragic horror that many left the theatre. ”

“ Her Desdemona in "Otello," which shortly followed her first opera, was supported by Rubini as Otello, Tamburini as Iago, and Ivanhoff as Rodriguez. It may be doubted whether any singer ever leaped into such instant and exalted favor in London, where the audiences are habitually cold.
Her appearance as Norma in December, 1834, stamped this henceforth as her greatest performance. "In this character, Grisi," says a writer in the "Musical World," "is not to be approached, for all those attributes which have given her her best distinction are displayed therein in their fullest splendor. ”

“ It was too near the Aïda epoch to make a great forward step. Otello, in 1887, set the musical world mad with surprise, curiosity, delight. It reveals little or none of the narrow, noisy, vulgar, and violent Verdi of 1850. The character-drawing is done by a man who is master of his material. The plot moves in majestical splendor, and the musical psychology is often subtle. At last Verdi has flowered. His other music, smelling ranker of the soil, showing more thematic invention, was but the effort of a hot-headed man of the footlights, a seeker after applause and money. ”

“ Otello recalls Aida in the general outlines of its structure, but voices and orchestra are treated with greater freedom than in the earlier work, and there is a conspicuous absence of set airs. In so far as regards the essential qualities of the music, Otello is an immense advance upon anything Verdi had previously written. It has a dramatic force and a power of characterization for which it would be vain to look in his earlier work, and which are all the more remarkable as appearing for the first time in this high degree of development in a work written in extreme old age. ”

“ If Meyerbeer could employ the orchestra slavishly and make it so important and successful a feature in the Franco-German operatic ensemble, why should not he, Verdi, do as much for Italian art?
Otello was yet a further emphasis. When first heard in London, musical minds immediately perceived not only a remarkable work for a composer full of years, but also an opera which fully confirmed the tactics advanced in Aïda. Another opera had brought forth another demonstration of the composer's remarkable dramatic powers, ever developing in each successive opera. ”

“ Musically, dramatically, [Pg 500] formally, and technically Otello and Falstaff are the most finished examples of operatic composition that Italy has ever given to the world; and even outside Italy—if one excepts the masterpieces of Wagner—it is doubtful if they can be paralleled. Whether, also, they possess the divine spark which alone gives immortality is a moot point. We cannot say.
The goddess of fortune, who on the whole kept ever close to Verdi’s side, secured for him in his culminating efforts the collaboration of Arrigo Boïto, a poet and musician of exceptional gifts. ”

“ Yet, if such criticism were insufficient to prove that there was, as there had been all along, something of merit in Verdi and his music, we find it accentuated two years later when Otello was given at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden. On this occasion we are told:—"If the score is less equal in inspiration and less remarkable for glowing picturesqueness than that of Aïda, it is worthy to rank with that beautiful work, and moreover affords ample proof that a composer of genius can satisfy the requirements of modern opera ”

“ Was it not to be expected that after him would come men who would emulate the manner of his last works? Was it unnatural to believe that Italy would interest itself in a more [Pg 368] faithful setting of words to music? And the direct followers of the composer of Otello gave forth something that called the world's attention to their works. That it maintained Italian opera at a plane equal to the three final works of Verdi cannot be said. It was a passing phase and opened the way for the men who are now raising Italian operatic composition to the highest point in its history. ”

“ The leaves that remain on the Autumnal trees are yet green, and the birds still [Pg 226] sing among them. ‘Otello’ itself will, in some form or other, soon be heard in London; and it is pleasant to think that the subject is taken from one of the greatest works of the greatest of all literary Englishmen. The theme is noble, and so, apparently, is the treatment. Nor should we forget that so distinguished a composer as Signor Boïto has not disdained, nay, has elected, to compose the libretto for the old maestro. ”

“ Many and various other honours have fallen upon Verdi. When Otello was first performed in Paris, for instance, the President of the Republic (M. Casimir-Périer) , before the beginning of the second act, invested the composer with the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honour. Only England has done nothing. Good old insular England, that can distinguish and single out successful pickle-makers and milliners, but cannot find an honour to bestow on many a worthy and wondrous slave to Art and Science! ”

“ In the picture of a storm which opens the opera the manipulator of the artificial lightning is not left to his discretion as to the proper moment for discharging his brutum fulmen; in the love duet, at the close of the first act, the appearance of the moon and stars is sought to be intensified by descriptive effects in the music; and when, in the last scene, Otello kisses the sleeping Desdemona, and the one typical phrase of the opera (drawn from the love scene) is repeated, the composer indicates on what beat of each measure he wants each kiss to fall. ”

“ He reappeared at the same theatre in 1870 as Don Ottavio, the Duke (Rigoletto) , John of Leyden; and in 1877, at Her Majesty's, as Ottavio, Otello, and Manrico, and was well received, though his powers were on the wane. He is now living at Madrid, where he carries on a manufactory of arms, occasionally singing in public. ”

“ In 1881 a revised version of Simon Boccanegra, an earlier work which had not been successful, was produced at Milan. The libretto had been in part rewritten by Arrigo Boito, and Verdi wrote a great deal of new music for the revival, which was eminently successful. After this it was generally supposed that Verdi, who had reached an advanced age, had finally relinquished composition, but after a lapse of some years it became known that he was at work upon a new opera, and in 1887 Otello was produced at Milan. ”

“ It is indeed a very merry work, and curiously Shakespearian; all the parts are showy to sing and to act, the {83} music, though full of character, is thoroughly vocal, and the orchestration is never too heavy for the singers. As a comic opera it is quite one of the best in the world, and fully deserves its place in the repertory of opera for all time.
We now come to the third opera founded on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Verdi's Falstaff, libretto by Boito. After the production of Otello, 1887, the composer was silent operatically ”

“ Since this work was produced, no other for the stage has come from his pen. Should he break his long silence, some new work may show that he has gone still farther in the new path. If the time for rest has come, however, to the aged composer, "Aida" will remain his masterpiece among musicians and connoisseurs, though "Trovatore" will be best loved by the people.
OTHELLO. Othello has formed the subject of the following compositions:
"Otello," opera in 3 acts, text by Berio, music by Rossini (1816) ;
"Othelleri," parody by Müller, Vienna (1828) ”

“ To some it appears monstrous that men and women should be represented on the stage singing, when it is notorious that in actual life they communicate in the speaking voice. Opera was declared to be unnatural as compared with drama. In other words, it was thought natural that Desdemona should express her grief in melodious verse, but unnatural that she should do so in pure melody. (For the sake of the comparison I must suppose Rossini's Otello to have been written long before its time) . ”

“ For seventeen nights the theatre was crowded at double prices, notwithstanding the subscribers’ privileges were on most of these occasions suspended, and although Otello, La Cenerentola, La Gazza Ladra, and pieces of that description, were the only ones offered to a public, long since tired even of the beauties of Rossini, and proverbial for its love of novelty. But her grand triumph of all, was on the night when she took her leave of the Neapolitan audience in the character of Ninetta: nothing can be imagined superior to the spectacle afforded by the immense theatre of St. ”

“ Desdemona was awakened with his kisses, and she looked upon Othello, and she saw him gnaw his under lip, and roll his eyes, and she knew he was always fatal when he looked so: and he bade her prepare for death, and to say her prayers, for he would not kill her soul. And this innocent wife, as she lay at his mercy, begged for compassion, and to know her fault, and then he named Cassio, and the handkerchief which (he said) she had given him; and as the guiltless lady was proceeding to clear herself he suddenly would hear no more, but covering her up in the bed-clothes, stifled her till she died. ”

“ Othello is not represented merely as a man who is consumed and maddened by jealousy, but as a citizen and a soldier, encompassed by friends and enemies, and brought into contact, not with Desdemona and Iago alone, but with the Duke of Venice, with valiant Cassio, with witty Montano, with Brabantio, with Gratiano, in a word with people and things in general. ”