Otello

One of the chief pleasures of this live production of Otello from the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden is Daniel Barenboim's conducting. From the opening gale-force blast of storm music, through the crunching and stabbing accompaniment of Iago's "Credo" to the shimmering strings of Desdemona's "Willow Song", he doesn't miss a trick. Everything works at the highest pitch of intensity and the orchestra sticks to his beat like glue. It's a necessary compensation for the shortcomings of the staging: the stolid chorus remains unperturbed by the storm and is directed to perform with unison movements; the acting (apart from Valeri Alexejev) is non-committal, and Alexandre Tarta's video direction somewhat flat-footed. She doesn't manage to make much small-screen sense of an impenetrably murky opening scene, for example, and doesn't seem fond of reaction shots.

• Release date
• January 1, 2001
• Runtime
• 157 min
• Genres
• Music
• Director
• Jürgen Flimm

Cast

C

Christian Franz Otello (tenor) Emily Magee Desdemona (soprano) Valeri Alexejev Iago (baritone) Stephan Rügamer Cassio (tenor)

A

Andreas Schmidt Roderigo (tenor) Kwangchul Youn Lodovico (bass)

G

Gerd Wolf Montano (bass)

K

Katharina Kammerloher Emilia (mezzo-soprano)