Otello

This celebrated Verdi opera offers the so-called triple threat of conflicting personalities: the world’s hero in Othello, its villain in Iago and the lover in Desdemona.

But this operatic trio was mightily upset only a fortnight before opening when Georgian singer Tamar Iveri was sacked by Opera Australia from the role of Desdemona.  Its problem was her very unloving, homophobic rant on Facebook.

Her quickly engaged replacement is Armenian soprano LIanna Haroutounian who made a name for herself last year at Covent Garden when she similarly stepped in last minute to triumph as Elizabeth in Don Carlos. 

Her Desdemona is beautifully sung and acted, and gives love the full advantage in this acutely power-conscious production from Harry Kupfer.  He first staged this Opera Australia production in 2003, after two decades spent as director of Berlin’s Komische Oper. It’s been much revived.

The production is distinguished by a huge arena of steps sweeping through an amphitheatre dressed like a 1930’s cinema, with sunlit entrances through doors at the top.  With one flank of Hans Schavernoch’s steps destroyed by an explosion through the ornate ceiling, this is a harbinger of more destruction ahead.

So is the storm which begins the opera, as Kupfer’s stunningly choreographed chorus of dignitaries rush up and down this staircase of power, costumed by Yan Tax in the fashions of Italian fascism.

At the top, but destroyed by his jealousy and ending prostrate at the bottom, is Otello.

Simon O’Neill gives him a rich full helden-tenor voice and a hefty physique which makes for a charismatic if wooden performance. Only by the end, helped no doubt by the sincerity of Haroutounian, does O’Neill find some nuance in Otello’s slide to self-destruction.

Making up the trio is the suitably dark and angular figure of baritone Claudio Sgura, who may edge slightly into high camp, but it’s hard not to when singing happily of your birth in primeval slime.  He is rivetting when seeding Otello’s jealousy with false tales of Desdemona. 

Interestingly, O’Neill’s Otello continues an apparent 21st Century trend to bleach the black out of Shakespeare’s Moor, instead of face the racisms inherent in the original.

Christian Badea conducts a tight orchestra through the swirling Wagnerian-influenced score, driving the narrative and noted for its recurring musical themes around different power figures and their interactions.  It’s an impressive revival.

Martin Portus 

Images: Lianna Haroutounian as Desdemona and Simon O'Neill as Otello & Claudio Sgura as Iago and Simon O'Neill as Otello. Photographer: Branco Gaica.