Otello
Opera in four acts
Libretto by Arrigo Boito

The opera Otello by Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito not only represents the outstanding result of an intensely fruitful creative collaboration between composer and librettist, but also one of the most important core works ever in the opera repe,toire. With his musical setting of Shakespeare's play, the composition of which took him several years, Verdi also achieved a new level of quality within the framework of his operatic oeuvre. His path was resolute and consistent, leading him away from structured numbers of arias, recitatives and ensembles, and towards the through-composed, Iarge-scale dramatic form: yet without taking a leaf from Wagner's book! '''' this based on an outstandingly crafted literary foundation and a dramatic story, in which three extremely different people - with characters ranging from profoundly evil, rnadly jealous and distrustful, to enamoured of death - take an emotional roller-coaster ride. A ride ending in death for all three.

This drama is supported by music that, especially in the depths of the orchestral scoring, subtly penetrates the psyche of the characters, without ruthlessly dissecting them. Music that, despite its magic of its refined tones, never brushes aside the greatest priority of the Italian opera: the human voice. In Ote//o, Verdi succeeded in creating his own path leading to ''music-drama as a 'Gesamtkunstwerk,' as a perfect synthesis between action and music.''

Leading the prestigious Gulbenkian Orchestra in this ambitious studio recording is the knowledgeable and experienced conductor Lawrence Foster, who has previously made impressive recordings of other operas for PENTATONE: a highly praised recording of Strauss's Zigeunerbaron (= gipsy baron) and Getty's Usher House. The singers of the three main roles Otello, Iago, and Desdemona - already met for the complete recording if i Getty's The Little Match G,'rlfor PENTATONE, dating from 2014.

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This album was recorded at the Grande Auditorio of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, in July 2016.