Otello Riccardo Muti Conductor

Program OnE HunDRED TwEn TIETH SEASOn Chicago Symphony orchestra riccardo muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, April 7, 2011, at 7:00 Saturday, April 9, 2011, at 7:00 Tuesday, April 12, 2011, at 7:00 Otello Music by Giuseppe Verdi Libretto by Arrigo Boito, after Shakespeare’s Othello riccardo muti Conductor Otello, a Moor, general of the Venetian forces ........................ aleksandrs antonenko Tenor Iago, his ensign ......................................Nicola alaimo 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 gentle- men; 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 Director Chicago Children’s Choir Josephine Lee Artistic Director (continued) Otello Act 1 Act 2 INtErmISSIoN Act 3 Act 4 Place: A seaport in Cyprus Time: The end of the fifteenth century Musical preparation: Speranza Scappucci Supertitles by Sonya Friedman These are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first subscription concert performances of Verdi’s Otello. Production of Otello is made possible with leadership support from Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin and the following generous contributors: Julie and Roger Baskes ∙ Rhoda Lea and Henry S. Frank ∙ Gilchrist Foundation ∙ Mr. & Mrs. Thomas C. Heagy ∙ Mr. & Mrs. Sanfred Koltun ∙ Margot and Josef Lakonishok ∙ Mr. Richard J. Tribble ∙ and an Anonymous Donor. Maestro Muti’s 2011 Spring Residency is supported in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. Steinway is the official piano of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 2 CommENtS By PHILLIP HuSCHER giuseppe Verdi Born October 9, 1813, Roncole, near Busseto, Italy. Died January 27, 1901, Milan, Italy. Otello, opera in Four acts erdi found his few idols— Macbeth provoked criticism, Verdi VMichelangelo, Dante, Schiller, lashed out at the suggestion he did and most of all, Shakespeare—out- not know his Shakespeare: “. I side music. Today, visitors to Sant’ have had him in my hands from my Agata, the ochre-colored villa earliest youth, and I read and reread where Verdi lived nearly his entire him continually.” adult life, can still see, atop Verdi’s Macbeth was Verdi’s first setting bedside bookcase, two complete of Shakespeare, but it was not the Italian translations of the works first Shakespeare play to tempt of Shakespeare, worn by time him. As early as 1844—Nabucco and constant handling, next to had recently given Verdi his the complete works of Dante and first taste of success—King Lear, the plays of Schiller. This was the Hamlet, and The Tempest headed company he chose, these the men the list of favored subjects. Lear from whom he continued to learn would continue to taunt Verdi of life—for Verdi, the only true throughout his life; it was his one textbook on music. great, unfulfilled hope. He worked We do not know when Giuseppe closely with Antonio Somma on a Verdi—born into poverty and libretto, admitting to him that he raised simply—came to value the preferred Shakespeare to all other words of Shakespeare, but in 1865, dramatists, including the Greeks; when the revision of his opera whatever music he wrote for King ComPoSED INStrumENtatIoN aPProxImatE March 1884–november 1886 three flutes and piccolo, two PErFormaNCE tImE oboes and english horn, two Acts 1 and 2: 69 minutes FIrSt PErFormaNCE clarinets and bass clarinet, Acts 3 and 4: 67 minutes February 5, 1887, Teatro all four bassoons, four horns, Scala, Milan two trumpets and two CSo rECorDINg cornets, four trombones, 1991. Sir Georg Solti timpani, cymbals, tam-tam, conducting; with Kiri Te bass drums, harp, mando- Kanawa, Luciano Pavarotti, lins, guitar, organ, strings, and Leo nucci, principal offstage banda of trumpets soloists. London. and trombones 3 Lear either found its way into were dining with Verdi, his wife other projects or was destroyed, Giuseppina, and Franco Faccio, according to the composer’s wishes, Italy’s leading conductor. “Quite after his death. by chance,” Ricordi later remem- In 1850, Verdi said that he bered, “I steered the conversation planned to compose settings of “all on to Shakespeare and Boito. At the major works of the great trage- the mention of Othello, I saw Verdi look at me with suspicion, but with interest. He had certainly under- stood and had certainly reacted. I believe the time was ripe.” Those are the names Ricordi carefully dropped into the table conversation that night—Othello, a play Verdi had never seriously considered setting, and Arrigo Boito, known for his own opera, Mefistofele, and for several libret- tos written for others, including a Hamlet for Faccio, and La Gioconda for Ponchielli. If the time was ripe, Verdi remained cool. Faccio brought Boito to see Verdi the next day; three days later, when Boito returned alone, with an Otello— Othello loses an “h” in translation to Italian—libretto already sketched, Boito and Verdi at Sant’ Agata Verdi said simply, “Now write the poetry. It will always do for me, or for you, or for someone else.” dian.” But, aside from Macbeth and Boito worked on the libretto intermittent stirrings of the Lear continually, despite facial neuralgia project, nothing came of any plans and a severe recurring toothache; until 1879, when Verdi’s reputation finally, he sent part of it on to Verdi and success were so great that, at in November. Giuseppina knew the age of sixty-five, he could easily better than to press for a verdict. have retired for good, knowing that “Let the river find its own way to Aida, the Requiem, and another the sea,” she advised. “It is in the half-dozen works at the very least, wide open spaces that some men would keep his name alive. are destined to meet and under- It was Giulio Ricordi—his stand one another.” family name still heads the scores The relationship between Verdi from which many young singers and Arrigo Boito was complicated. learn Verdi—who first mentioned They had known each other since Othello. Ricordi and his wife 1862, when the twenty-year-old 4 Boito wrote the text for Verdi’s Italy was not widespread. The play “Hymn of the Nations”—an Macbeth, for example, had never uncomfortable, yet undeniably been staged in Italy when Verdi rousing mixture of three national wrote his opera; even in 1879, as anthems—but true understanding Verdi began to consider making an of the kind that allows for inspired opera of Othello, Shakespeare was collaboration was still far off. At known and admired only by an the time, Verdi thanked Boito, gave educated few. him a gold watch, and moved on Arrigo Boito was one of those to bigger projects, never guessing few, as much a man of letters, in that they would later find important fact, as a musician. And so late in work to do together. Their paths 1879, the river found its way to seldom crossed; for a while, due to the sea: Giuseppina confided that a misunderstanding, they did not Verdi liked what he found in Boito’s speak. Boito was known to harbor draft. But she also noticed that he Wagnerian yearnings. (“No harm slipped it into his briefcase, beside in that,” Verdi said, “as long Somma’s King Lear libretto, “which admiration doesn’t degenerate into has been sleeping soundly and imitation.”) When Verdi and Boito undisturbed for thirty years. What ran into each other in the railroad will become of this Otello?” she station waiting room following a wrote to a friend the week before performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin Christmas in 1879, “no one knows.” in Bologna in 1871, they talked It was to be more than four mostly of the difficulties of sleeping years before Verdi began to write on the train. Boito’s opera Mefistofele the music for Otello, but, in the was successfully revived in 1875, but intervening time, it was never far Verdi was still unmoved: “It is dif- from his mind. At first, Giulio ficult at the moment to say whether Ricordi played go-between, Boito will be able to provide Italy intercepting messages and forward- with masterpieces. He has much ing suggestions, as Boito refined talent, he aspires to originality, but the text. Soon, Boito and Verdi the result is rather peculiar. .” began to exchange letters directly. By the time Verdi sat down to There were large problems to dinner with Giulio Ricordi in be solved. It was Boito’s idea to the summer of 1879, Verdi knew omit Shakespeare’s first act, set in Boito as a man of genuine talent, Venice. Verdi demanded a stirring and possibly of great promise, but crowd scene, without parallel in hardly a likely partner. Perhaps he Shakespeare, to bring the curtain welcomed Boito into his home the down on act 3. Boito sharpened next day—their first meeting since it by wiping the crowd from the the brief encounter in the train stage just at the end, leaving Iago station eight years before—because triumphant over Otello’s limp he knew Boito shared his deep love body.

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