Giuseppe Verdi: Otello

The Opera House will bring Giuseppe Verdi’s world-famous opera to the audience this January. At the center of the play is Otello, the Moor, the soldier, the leader, the husband in love, who, despite all his merits, is not accepted by the people of Venice: he remains forever “black”, a stranger. The performance is an extremely exceptional, refined work by Verdi, where the composer speaks in his usual, characteristic voice, but still brings new colors to his oeuvre.

Opera in two parts, four acts, in Italian, with Hungarian and English subtitles

Giuseppe Verdi retired after the premiere of Aida in 1871 and did not write another opera for 16 years. “What should I compose for?” he said. He was estranged from his age: from the renewed Italian opera, from Wagnerism, from current politics. However, thanks to a dinner in Milan and the persistent young music publisher Giulio Ricordi, the Maestro nevertheless set about composing a new work, which he referred to simply as “the Chocolate Project”. As a result, in 1887, the penultimate opera of the then 74-year-old master: Otello, was presented at Scalá. In the raging storm scene of the opening moments, Verdi’s music sounded with elemental force after so many years of silence. A man who felt like an outsider composed the story of an “outsider” man. Otello, the Moor, the soldier, the leader, the loving husband, who, despite all his merits, is not accepted by the people of Venice: he will forever remain “black”, a stranger. The vulnerability of a stranger who wants to fit in is easily triggered by a false friend – and by jealousy. Otello is an exceptional, clean work, where Verdi speaks in his already well-known, characteristic voice, while bringing new colors to his oeuvre so far. The opera version of Shakespeare’s tragedy was put on the stage of the Opera House by the Italian star director Stefano Poda.

Tickets on the website of the Opera House.

Venue: Opera House
Dates: 14, 18, 20, 22, 27 Jan
Time: 19:00-22:00

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