My joint-favourite opera managed to serve me up a forgettable night tonight at Covent Garden. At least, I hope it's forgettable, because the thought of remembering it is quite horrible. As I beat my hasty retreat, I overheard soemone saying "Decidedly average!" and I was tempted to challenge them with "That good, huh?"
Good bits - Verdi, Verdi, Verdi, Boito, Boito, Boito, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare. The orchestra played like a dream. The choruses were sublime - especially in the opening storm and the bit when Ludovico arrives with the message from Venice.
Also, Amanda Roocroft sang a pleasant Salce/Ave Maria, although really not a patch on Kiri Te Kanawa or Renée Fleming. No, stop this now, no unfavourable comparisons are allowed. She also wasn't bad in the Act 3 duet, but much of the rest of the time I winced as she failed to hit the high notes.
Cassio was eminently forgettable - quite frankly, I can't begin to imagine how Otello could have ever have thought that Desdemona was attracted to him. Certainly no Robin Leggate. No, stop these comparisons.
Iago - oh dear! What a shower. Lucio Gallo made Leo Nucci look malign. Was absolutely dreadful in the Beve con me, and worse in Iago's Credo. Might as well have been singing The Red Red Robin Goes Bob Bob Bobbin Along. How I wished for Sergei Leiferkus, for example. Except that comparisons are not allowed I got to the point where I was dreading the Si pel ciel marmorea giuro, but, thankfully, he held it together. Just. During the duet after the quartet my mind wondered onto the subject of AVCs. Imagine that, imagine thinking about Additional Voluntary Contributions during Verdi's greatest opera. And it's not even near the end of the tax year.
Ben Heppner was Otello. He wasn't too bad in Act 3. Sounded quite lyrical in that soliloquy. For a moment. Or maybe two. And really wasn't bad in the duet with Desdemona. In Acts 1 and 2 he was bearable, especially if you were able to overlook the cracks and strains in the voice. Gia nelle notte densa was...awful. An insipid Ora e sempre addio. He seemed to miss a few notes in Si pel ciel marmorea giuro but there's such a swirl of dissonance going on it's survivable.
Shall we not even mention Act 4? Best not to, really. It was a bit of a shame that the entire Amphitheatre had a sharp collective intake of breath at that cracked note, the one jsut before the voice vamoused into thin air.
If you're going, I hope you have a better experience. Act 3's really quite almost good. The orchestra played superbly. Verdi's music is unkillable.
Well, you can guess what DVD I shall be watching tomorrow evening. I think it will take considerable persuasion to ever get to me to go to Otello again. Shame, because it's my joint favourite opera.
The music is sublime...
Update:
The Guardian suggests it is a performance you can take or leave, The Times is entusiastic with praise
But the Telegraph is close to my view:
Few performances of Otello at Covent Garden can have been received with such tepid applause as this one was. Something had gone badly wrong, and the explanation can't lie just in resentment at the premium-price seats or disappointment at the non-appearance of Renée Fleming, the advertised Desdemona, absent attending to family illness......It was in the casting of the two principals that the barometer fell. I don't want to be too harsh on Amanda Roocroft, who replaced Fleming relatively late in rehearsal. She looked appealing, and sang decently whenever she hit mezzo-forte in her middle and upper-middle registers.
But Desdemona pushes her out of her vocal league: her phrasing is short-breathed, her top is squally, she can't float, she doesn't deliver text with clarity or insight, and she let a tremolo ruin the "Ave Maria". In future, she should steer clear of Verdi.
The Otello was Ben Heppner, a marvellous dramatic tenor with a ringingly beautiful voice, true musicianship and strong stage presence.
Some of the most difficult portions of the role - the monologues in the second and third act, for instance - were sung magnificently. But the crucial opening "Esultate" fell flat, and his interpretation never laid bare the anguish of the wounded animal.
Some terrible cracked notes clearly unnerved him as much as they did the audience, and I fear that it was his strangulated gurgle at the very end of the opera which put paid to any enthusiasm in the ovation.
And the Independent concludes its review by saying what it shouldn't say...
Elijah Moshinsky's 1987 staging in Timothy O'Brien's gaunt and imposing sets still looks handsome and has been well revived by Bill Bankes-Jones clearly responsive to Pappano's febrile impulses. All that was missing was the only man ever to fill all its requirements: Placido Domingo. Heppner, alas, was but a shadow of that presence.
