We live in an age when it is no longer acceptable for white actors to black-up to play Shakespeare’s Othello. Gwyn Hughes John plays Verdi’s Otello without make-up. He remains a white man and all references to Otello’s black ethnicity have been removed.
Racism plays no part in David Pountney’s modern update whatsoever. Verdi and Shakespeare are much diminished as a result. Play and opera are far less interesting and erotic if Otello is not black and just an ordinary bloke and there is nothing awesome and special about him.
Pountney concentrates on the jealousy and Otello’s bad temper. The scene between Otello and Desdemona, when she unwisely pleads for demoted Cassio’s reinstatement, works best; at least, musically it does.
The casting of Iwona Sobotka and then putting her into military uniform means Desdemona comes across as a maternal figure rather than the sexual person she is for Otello.
There was a time when Verdi was composing Otello that he wanted to call the opera Iago. Dario Solari gives the best performance. He has Iago’s malevolence without ever overstating it and he commands the stage with authority.
It is difficult to believe that a nonentity such as Piotr Kalina‘s Cassio could ever have been promoted over Iago and that the Doge of Venice would make him governor of Cyprus.
Pountney’s production, which is conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk, lacks excitement on stage and in the pit. The chorus are poor actors and the drunken brawl is totally unconvincing. Raimund Bauer has designed a dull, unfurnished and colourless set. There is nothing to suggest a foreign and exotic land; and when the time comes for Desdemona to be murdered, there is no bed, only cushions on the floor. The murder is not horrific enough.