Otello

Address

Kirsten Flagstads Plass 1,
0150 Oslo

Otello

Description

Verdi's masterly opera about human darkness - in luminous music What can jealousy and bitterness make you do? What lives inside you if someone exploits your vulnerability to the utmost? The shadow side of humanity is laid bare in this modern version of Verdi's Otello. A Nordic all-star cast returns to Otello He has built himself up from nothing, triumphed on the battlefields and married the beautiful Desdemona. From the outside Otello looks like a winner. But within his own ranks there is one who turns victory into defeat, by setting Otello against himself. "I believe in a cruel God, who created me in his image." So runs Iago's credo. He is one of the stage's most cunning characters - and is passed over as Otello's second-in-command. As punishment, Iago wants to inflict on Otello the same humiliation he himself has been subjected to. Marita Sølberg's interpretation of Desdemona received glowing reviews in January 2025. Now Rodrigo Garull stands at her side as Otello - and Audun Iversen makes his role debut as the morally corrupt Iago. Otello's museum In this production a group of people explore the work of art Otello in a gallery. A mighty chorus of around 70 singers makes up this crowd, who are quickly drawn into the plot. In this way we, the audience, are invited to reflect on how we relate to old works: can we immerse ourselves in the story while at the same time seeing the problematic sides of this piece? In Shakespeare's drama and its sources of inspiration, Otello has been portrayed as different from the other characters, because he is a Moor and black. For long periods white singers and actors have played this "foreign" role with blackened faces. Can the dark shadows Otello carries with him remind us that opera and theatre too have helped to define certain groups as foreign or different? Verdi's last tragic masterpiece Otello was an enormous success already at its premiere in Milan in 1887. The opera set itself apart from Verdi's earlier works in that the music was written almost as one continuous whole, while at the same time building on the time-honoured Italian operatic heritage. This was to be Verdi's very last tragic masterpiece, and the text by Arrigo Boito is based on William Shakespeare's drama from the early 1600s. To this day Otello remains among the most beautiful things ever written for the opera stage. Artistic team and performers Music Giuseppe Verdi Libretto Arrigo Boito Musical direction Giulio Cilona and Paolo Arrivabeni Direction Georg Zlabinger Set design Martin Zlabinger Costume design Theresa Wilson Lighting design Bernd Purkrabek Performers Operakoret, Barnekoret, Operaorkestret Otello Rodrigo Garull Desdemona Marita Sølberg Iago Audun Iversen Emilia Astrid Nordstad Cassio Eirik Grøtvedt Rodrigo Magnus Staveland Ludovico Magne Fremmerlid Montano Johannes Nikolai Aas A herald Pietro Simone