Anyone for tennis?: Jens Søndergaard’s charismatic Iago Picture © Lennard Sjöberg
This is an edited version (Andrew Clark) of my review first published in Oper! Magazin in a German translation by Jan Geisbusch, republished here as a free article for all subscribers by kind permission of the editor, Dr. Ulrich Ruhnke
When did anyone last see the ballet music of Otello – written for the first Paris performance in 1894 – in a staging of Verdi’s 1887 masterpiece? Its inclusion in Göteborgsoperan’s new production was the biggest surprise of a modern-dress ‘psychological’ interpretation by the rising young Spanish director Rafael R. Villalobos.
There was no dancing. Just before the arrival of the Venetian delegation in Act 3, Iago (Jens Søndergaard) has the stage to himself, and his dastardly plan to remove his political rival, Cassio, and destroy the marriage of his hated boss, Otello, is going so well that he does a little jig round the stage while the chorus assembles for the arrival of the Venetians. By Verdi’s standards, this is a short ‘insertion ballet’, superfluous to the action and intended only for performance in Paris. Nor is it by any means the best dance music he wrote for the grand-opera-addicted French capital, but I have never heard it in 50 live performances of the opera, so it was a not unwelcome novelty, cleverly interpolated into the action.
The sequence also underlined the centrality of Iago in Villalobos’s conception of the opera. Søndergaard is a charismatic performer and the possessor a dark, gritty baritone, certainly lacking Italianitá, but a powerful focus for the ‘dark side’ in this opera. In the opening Storm scene, with the chorus milling around an agitated Otello already on stage, Søndergaard stands still, spotlit, hatching his evil plan. He is the nattiest dresser – a sharp grey suit with a black roll-neck pullover in Act 1, in dazzling ‘Wimbledon’ whites for a tennis match with his boss in Act 2 (Otello wears a black tracksuit). In Emanuele Senici’s dystopian, bombed out set, Cyprus looks more like Lviv or Gaza today, with a huge hole in the ceiling and walls pock-marked with gunshot.
Desdemona’s Aubade: Julia Sporsén (Desdemona, centre), children’s chorus, Søndergaard (Iago, right) Picture © Lennart Sjöberg
Not all of Villalobos’s ideas are as theatrically as engaging. The Spanish director is fond of doubles, child-doubles indeed, of both Otello and Desdemona: I guess this is supposed to suggest both characters’ emotional vulnerability, but it’s a distraction. And he gives subtitles to the two parts of the opera, Stigma (Acts 1 and 2) and Trauma (Act 3 & 4). The ‘stigma’ is not Otello’s Moorish origin or dark skin, but a facial disfiguration from birth. Otello as child (Oskar Bryllert) shares the same affliction, and we see him taunted for it by other children in the Act 2 Aubade to Desdemona.
Another of Villalobos’s novelties – though I can’t say it registered clearly on stage – is his identification of Desdemona’s confidante, Emilia, with Barbara, the ‘povera ancella’ (poor handmaid), she sings of in the Willow Song. To be honest, I wouldn’t have made the connection had I not read her alternative name in the programme. But this final scene was, nevertheless, the most powerful of the evening, with Julia Sporsén’s lyrical Desdemona singing her heart out, inconsolable with grief and incomprehension by her husband’s violent treatment of her in the previous scene. Their bed is bathed in a square ‘room’ of light and her sense of isolation and despair is palpable, the most moving performance of the evening.
But even here there are oddities. Emilia/Barbara (Ann-Kristin Jones, like Sporsén a member of the excellent Göteborg ensemble), undresses to reveal that she is feigning pregnancy, a gloss on the Iago-Emilia marriage I had never expected to see on stage. Their relationship seems fractious from their first meeting in the opera when Iago snatches Desdemona’s fateful fazzoletto. Jones, whom I admired earlier this year as one of the standout voices (Junon) in Göteborg’s staging of Rameau’s Platée, sings her role with plush mezzo tone.
Michael Weinius (Otello) with Oskar Bryllert (Otello as a child) Picture © Lennart Sjöberg
Göteborgsoperan is, of course, an ensemble company, for which Otello poses a formidable challenge. The engagement of the young Italian conductor Vincenzo Milletarì, a name new to me, was crucial to the production’s success: his handling of the orchestra and, above all, the chorus brought an authentic flavour of Italianate temperament and drama to the entire performance. In the opening scene, the sense of electricity in the pit and on stage was palpable, the choral ‘tempest’ delivered with thrilling éclat (enhanced by Felipe Ramos’s lighting effects).
Casting this opera is already problematic for the most well-endowed international houses, so it was entirely understandable that Göteborg built their staging around a Swedish heldentenor, Michael Weinius, already well-established internationally as Wagner’s Tristan and Siegmund. There is a long tradition outside Italy of casting the most heroic of Italian tenor roles with a leading Wagnerian (Windgassen, Kollo, Heppner spring to mind). Weinius lacks a few crucial notes at the top of his range – he basically yelped when the tessitura rose above A – but his voice still has the requisite power to master the baritenorial ‘Dio, mi potevi scagliar’ and ‘Niun mi tema’, and he mustered sufficient mezza voce delicacy to convey the sensuality of the Act 1 love duet with Desdemona. Next to Søndergaard’s bluff, athletic Iago, Weinius cut a shambling figure – no match for his Ensign in the tennis stakes – but ultimately a moving one. Søndergaard made something special of Iago’s ‘Credo’, even without a rounded Italian timbre, and his every utterance was suffused with the know-how of a born music-theatre animal.
Søndergaard (Iago) surveys his destructive handiwork: (left to right) Sporsén (Desdemona), Ann-Kristin Jone (Emilia/Barbara), Mats Almgren (Lodovico) Picture © Lennart Sjöberg
Among the smaller parts, Adam Frandsen sang an appealingly lyrical Cassio, and the veteran Mats Almgren – a baleful Hagen in times past – sang the Venetian delegate with diminished vocal resources but undoubted histrionic authority. In sum, an imperfect Otello, but the visceral core of the drama crossed the footlights with indisputable clarity.
Cast and Creatives
Otello Michael Weinius Desdemona Julia Sporsén Iago Jens Søndergaard Cassio Adam Frandsen Emilia/Barbara Ann-Kristin Jones Roderigo Tobias Westman Lodovico Mats Almgren Montano Orhan Yildiz Herald Richard Laby
Conductor Vincenzo Milletari Director Rafael R. Villalobos Sets Emanuele Senici Costumes Rafael R. Villalobos, assisted by Arancha Rodrigálvares Lighting Felipe Ramos
Performance attended: 23.11.2024
Further performances: December 4, 7, 15, 19, 29, 2024 January 3, 9, 12 2025
Tomas Lind and Carolina Sandgren sing Otello and Desdemona on January 3 & 9
website: opera.se
A riveting and absorbing review of an opera I know well!. Thank you.
Thanks Helen 🙏🏼