VERDI OTELLO RICCARDO MUTI CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ALEKSANDRS ANTONENKO KRASSIMIRA STOYANOVA CARLO GUELFI CHICAGO SYMPHONY CHORUS / DUAIN WOLFE Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) OTELLO CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI 3 verdi OTELLO Riccardo Muti, conductor Chicago Symphony Orchestra Otello (1887) Opera in four acts Music BY Giuseppe Verdi LIBretto Based on Shakespeare’S tragedy Othello, BY Arrigo Boito Othello, a Moor, general of the Venetian forces .........................Aleksandrs Antonenko Tenor Iago, his ensign .........................................................................Carlo Guelfi Baritone Cassio, a captain .......................................................................Juan Francisco Gatell Tenor Roderigo, a Venetian gentleman ................................................Michael Spyres Tenor Lodovico, ambassador of the Venetian Republic .......................Eric Owens Bass-baritone Montano, Otello’s predecessor as governor of Cyprus ..............Paolo Battaglia Bass A Herald ....................................................................................David Govertsen Bass Desdemona, wife of Otello ........................................................Krassimira Stoyanova Soprano Emilia, wife of Iago ....................................................................BarBara DI Castri Mezzo-soprano Soldiers and sailors of the Venetian Republic; Venetian ladies and gentlemen; Cypriot men, women, and children; men of the Greek, Dalmatian, and Albanian armies; an innkeeper and his four servers; seamen Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe, CHORUS Director Chicago Children’S Choir Josephine LEE, Artistic Director Producer: David Frost Published by: Universal Music Careers (BMI), Recording Engineer: Christopher Willis 50.00% o/b/o Giusuppe Verdi Recorded live in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center Edited and mixed by David Frost April 7, 9, and 12, 2011. Mixing engineer: Tim Martyn, Silas Brown, and Richard King Ω& ©2013 Chicago Symphony Orchestra Photography: Todd Rosenberg CSOR 901 1301 / CSOR 901 1303 hybrid SACD cso.org/resound OTELLO CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI 4 verdi OTELLO disc 1 ATTO PRIMO 32:32 1 “Una vela! Una vela!” Coro, Montano, Cassio, Jago, Roderigo Page 22 4:27 2 “Esultate!” Otello, Coro Page 25 2:27 3 “Roderigo, ebben, che pensi?” Jago, Roderigo Page 26 2:21 4 “Fuoco di gioia!” Coro, Jago, Cassio, Roderigo Page 28 4:03 5 “Inaffia l’ugola!” Jago, Cassio, Roderigo, Coro Page 31 4:04 6 “Capitano, v’attende la fazione ai baluardi.” Montano, Cassio, Jago, Roderigo, Coro Page 35 1:18 7 “Abbasso le spade!” Otello, Jago, Cassio, Montano Page 39 3:12 8 “Già nella notte densa…” Otello, Desdemona Page 41 10:40 ATTO SECCONDO 34:22 9 “Non ti crucciar.” Jago, Cassio Page 46 2:53 10 “Credo in un Dio crudel…” Jago Page 47 4:13 11 “Eccola… Cassio” Jago, Otello, Coro Page 48 6:33 12 “Dove guardi splendono raggi,…” Coro, Fanciulli, Desdemona, Otello, Jago Page 53 4:01 13 “D’un uom che geme…” Desdemona, Otello, Jago, Emilia Page 56 4:49 14 “Desdemona rea!” Otello, Jago Page 62 5:28 15 “Era la notte…” Jago, Otello Page 65 4:01 16 “Sì, pel ciel marmoreo guiro!” Otello, Jago Page 68 2:24 OTELLO CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI 5 disc 2 ATTO TERZO 37:15 1 “La vedetta del porto ha segnalato…” Araldo, Otello, Jago, Desdemona Page 70 2:39 2 “Dio ti giocondi, o sposo…” Desdemona, Otello Page 71 10:06 3 “Dio! mi potevi scagliar tutti i mali…” Otello, Jago Page 77 4:05 4 “Vieni, l’aula è deserta.” Jago, Cassio, Otello Page 78 3:59 5 “Questo è una ragna” Jago, Cassio, Otello, Coro Page 83 3:19 6 “Viva! Evviva!” Coro, Lodovico, Otello, Desdemona, Emilia, Jago Page 88 5:31 7 “A terra! … sì…ne livido fango” Desdemona, Emilia, Cassio, Roderigo, Lodovico, Coro, Jago, Otello Page 93 7:36 ATTO QUARTO 31:48 8 “Era più calmo?” Emilia, Desdemona Page 101 4:45 9 “Piangea cantando…” Desdemona, Emilia Page 102 6:41 10 “Ave Maria,…” Desdemona Page 104 5:01 11 “Chi è là?” Desdemona, Otello Page 105 6:46 12 “Aprite! Aprite!” Emilia, Otello, Desdemona, Cassio, Jago, Lodovico, Montano Page 109 3:17 13 “Niun mi tema…” Otello, Cassio, Lodovico, Montano Page 113 5:18 OTELLO CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI 6 OTELLO CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI 7 verdi OTELLO Verdi found his few idols— It was Giulio Ricordi—his family way to the sea,” she advised. “It is Michelangelo, Dante, Schiller, and name still heads the scores from in the wide open spaces that some most of all, Shakespeare—outside which many young singers learn men are destined to meet and music. Today, visitors to Sant’ Verdi—who first mentioned Othello. understand one another.” Agata, the ochre-colored villa Ricordi and his wife were dining where Verdi lived nearly his entire with Verdi, his wife, Giuseppina, At the time Verdi sat down to dinner adult life, can still see, atop Verdi’s and Franco Faccio, Italy’s leading with Giulio Ricordi, in the summer bedside bookcase, two complete conductor. “Quite by chance,” of 1879, Verdi knew Boito as a man Italian translations of the works Ricordi later remembered, “I steered of genuine talent, and possibly of of Shakespeare, worn by time the conversation on to Shakespeare great promise, but hardly a likely and constant handling, next to and Boito. At the mention of Othello partner. Perhaps he welcomed the complete works of Dante, and I saw Verdi look at me with suspicion Boito into his home the next day the plays of Schiller. This was the but with interest. He had certainly because he knew Boito shared company he chose, these the men understood and had certainly his deep love for Shakespeare. from whom he continued to learn of reacted. I believe the time was ripe.” Enthusiasm for Shakespeare in life—for Verdi the only true textbook nineteenth-century Italy was not Those are the names Ricordi on music. widespread, and the play, Macbeth carefully dropped into the table had never been staged in Italy when We do not know when Giuseppe conversation that night—Othello, Verdi wrote his opera. Late in 1879, Verdi—born into poverty and raised a play Verdi had never seriously Giuseppina confided that Verdi liked simply—came to value the words considered setting; and Arrigo what he found in Boito’s draft. But of Shakespeare, but in 1865, when Boito, known for his own opera, she also noticed that he slipped it the revision of his opera Macbeth Mefistofele, and for several libretti into his briefcase, beside Somma’s provoked criticism, Verdi lashed out written for others, including a King Lear libretto, “which has been at the suggestion he did not know Hamlet for Faccio, and La Gioconda sleeping soundly and undisturbed his Shakespeare: “. I have had for Ponchielli. If the time was ripe, for thirty years. What will become him in my hands from my earliest Verdi remained cool. Faccio took of this Otello?” she wrote to a friend youth, and I read and reread him Boito to see Verdi the next day; the week before Christmas, “no one continually.” Macbeth was Verdi’s three days later, Boito returned knows.” first setting of Shakespeare, but it alone, with an Otello text already was not the first Shakespeare play sketched. Boito worked on the It was to be more than four years to tempt him. As early as 1844— libretto continually, despite facial before Verdi began to write the music Nabucco had recently given Verdi neuralgia, and a severe recurring for Otello, but, in the intervening his first taste of success—King toothache; finally he sent part of it time, it was never far from his Lear, Hamlet, and The Tempest on to Verdi in November. Giuseppina mind. There were large problems headed the list of favored subjects. knew better than to press for a to be solved. It was Boito’s idea to verdict. “Let the river find its own omit Shakespeare’s first Act, set in OTELLO CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RICCARDO MUTI 8 Venice. Verdi demanded a stirring refashioning Don Carlos had helped Press gathered from throughout crowd scene, without parallel in greatly in preparing the leap from Europe, and sent home reports Shakespeare, to bring down the Aida to Otello. that Verdi had surpassed himself. curtain on Act 3. Boito sharpened Although some critics missed the The music for Otello was written it by wiping the crowd from the simplicity of Verdi’s earlier works, in three spurts of activity, the first stage, just at the end, leaving few failed to note Otello’s subtle cut short in less than a month by a Iago triumphant over Otello’s limp interplay of word and music; infinite crippling rumor that Boito wished body. The guiding words in tidying command of orchestral color, ever he were writing the score himself. Shakespeare’s sprawling tragedy responsive to mood and meaning; Fences were mended, but damage were those Verdi proposed to and heightened sensitivity to the was done, and another eight Antonio Somma when tackling King frailty of human emotions. Otello is months passed, during which the Lear: “Brevity, clarity, truth.” at once a summing up—Falstaff, fate of Otello hung precariously, yet to come, charted different before Verdi again began to write. Before the real work began, Verdi territory—crystallizing all Verdi had This time Verdi worked at full force, and Boito collaborated on the learned in nearly fifty years spent in breaking off only for a normal revision of an earlier Verdi opera, the opera house, and also a work of summer holiday of “unimaginable Simon Boccanegra—a testing of unexpected vitality and vision—in laziness.” On October 5, 1885, the waters. It went well, though its own way, a work of the future. not without disagreement. In July Verdi wrote: “I finished the fourth 1881, four months after the new act and I breathe again.” There Boccanegra was first given, Boito were still further adjustments to Phillip Huscher is the program made his first visit to see Verdi face- text and music.