The opening of Otello at La Scala on 5 February 1887 was a major occasion, which musicians and critics attended from all over the world. People’s excitement mounted to fever pitch, both inside and outside the opera house. They were not to be disappointed. The seamless continuity of the opera, the lavish costumes, the richness and sophistication ...
Verdi’s late masterpiece, Otello, completed when he was 74, was the second of his three operas taken from the plays of Shakespeare. The libretto by Arrigo Boito dispensed with the Shakespeare’s opening scene, set in Venice and concentrated the action on Cyprus, giving it an almost claustrophobic intensity. Long considered Verdi’s greatest opera and his most ...
Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837) composed solo works for it. In spite of a lull during the early nineteenth century, the mandolin soon regained popularity. Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) used it in Otello (1884–86), Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919) in Pagliacci (1892) and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) used it his seventh and eighth symphonies and in Das Lied von der Erde (1907). The Modern Mandolin By ...
Milan, Madrid and South America. She was 63 when she retired in 1906, but made occasional comebacks until 1914. Some of Patti’s best roles included Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello, Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata, Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust and the title role in Delibes’ Lakmé. Introduction | High Romantic | Opera Personalities | Osip Petrov | High ...
1802–39, French Adolphe Nourrit, the French tenor, made his debut at the Paris Opéra in 1821, singing Pylade in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. Nourrit remained at the Opéra until 1837, singing, among other roles, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Rossini’s Otello. Nourrit was a brilliant all-round performer, charming his audiences with his subtle, ...
1775–1832, Italian Andrea Nozzari was one of the greatest tenors to sing in Rossini’s operas, creating, among many others, the roles of the Earl of Leicester in Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra and the title role in Otello. Nozzari was the complete opera singer, with a strong voice and graceful stage presence. He probably made his debut ...
(Ar-i’-go Bo-e’-to) 1842–1918 Italian composer and librettist Boito furnished the librettos for two of Verdi’s greatest Shakespearean masterpieces, Otello (1884–86) and Falstaff (1893). The premiere of his own operatic masterpiece Mefistofele, at La Scala, Milan (1868), was greeted with whistles due to the work’s extreme length (over five hours) and Germanic influences. As a result Boito for a while ...
was well within his scope. Tamberlik was a fearless exponent of the high C and the high C-sharp, half a tone higher. Among varied roles, Tamberlik sang Rossini’s Otello, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Florestan, Leonore’s imprisoned husband, in Beethoven’s Fidelio (1814) and the title roles in Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and Gounod’s Faust. Tamberlik ...
his many admirers with his effortless top C, which not all tenors were able to reach, and his passionate on-stage performances. His voice was described as ‘enduring brass’. Otello, the eponymous hero of Verdi’s penultimate opera, which he created in 1887, was arguably the most demanding tenor role outside the work of Richard Wagner; however, ...
moods was to characterize his later comic operas. In 1815 Rossini moved to Naples as the director of the Teatro S Carlo, where he concentrated on writing serious opera. Otello (1816), a highly reductive and free adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, despite a mediocre libretto, was much admired by other composers, including Meyerbeer and Verdi. It combined suggestions ...
, in an opera full of fun, lively, inventive orchestration and catchy melodies. A Tragic Alternative Yet this same year, Rossini unveiled a total contrast – his Otello (1816), a dark tale of love, jealousy and betrayal based on one of Shakespeare’s great tragedies. The part of the doomed heroine, Desdemona, was written for Rossini’s ...
Adelaide di Guesclino (1799) and 15 years later created the role of Narciso in Rossini’s Il turco in Italia. Rossini was impressed enough to write other parts for Davide in Otello and La donna del lago, among others. Davide was also in demand by Mayr, Donizetti and Giovanni Pacini the Sicilian composer; the tenor created roles in operas by ...
presence and a voice of great sweetness and expressiveness. After his debut, Mario travelled the opera world receiving great acclaim for his extensive repertoire of roles: these included Rossini’s Otello, Count Almaviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Manrico in Verdi’s Il trovatore. Mario sang in London at the Haymarket (1839–46) and Covent Garden (1847–71), in St Petersburg ...
1885–1969, Italian Born in a small Italian village, Martinelli scaled the heights of operatic fame, becoming Caruso’s successor in verismo repertoire at the Met. After making his operatic debut in the title role of Verdi’s Ernani, he achieved his breakthrough when engaged by Puccini to sing Dick Johnson in the 1911 European premiere of La fanciulla del ...
major work for 13 years, there were more achievements to come. In an astoundingly creative old age, Verdi produced two operas based on Shakespeare’s plays – the tragedy Otello and the comic opera Falstaff – and, in 1897, his Quattro pezzi sacri (‘Four Sacred Pieces’) for voices and orchestra. His second wife, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi ...
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