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.
Jürgen Flimm
Director
Arrigo Boito
Writer
Christian Franz
Otello (tenor)
Emily Magee
Desdemona (soprano)
Valeri Alexejev
Iago (baritone)
Stephan Rügamer
Cassio (tenor)
Andreas Schmidt
Roderigo (tenor)
Kwangchul Youn
Lodovico (bass)
Gerd Wolf
Montano (bass)
Katharina Kammerloher
Emilia (mezzo-soprano)
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