The event for this ambient pleasure was the NSO’s efficiency of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello,” which doubled because the opening a part of “Opera in Live performance,” a brand new sequence prompted by maestro Gianandrea Noseda’s pledge to carry out not less than one live performance. Opera each season. (In January 2025, Noseda will conduct the orchestra Two offers (“Vanessa,” directed by Samuel Barber, starring soprano Sondra Radvanovsky within the lead function.)
The final time the NSO approached live performance operas was in 2019, nevertheless it was solely a fleeting encounter – Act II of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”
For Noseda’s followers, Friday’s live performance represented a uncommon stateside alternative to expertise the conductor’s operatic facet, a mode normally reserved for his place as common music director of the Zurich Opera. Having simply accomplished two rounds of the favored ‘Ring’ course in Zurich (which stays obtainable as free streams on Zurich Opera website Till June 15), Noseda’s operatic scores have attracted worldwide consideration and, on the Kennedy Heart, a large viewers: “The Wagners are all right here,” I heard somebody comment from my seat. “Though I am unsure why.” (the shadow!)
For an opera stuffed with betrayal, deceit and jealousy, Friday’s “Otello” have been nothing however matches made in heaven: the NSO and a solid of proficient singers; The chemistry and chemistry between the singers themselves; Noseda and Verdi (!). It was a night filled with little surprises, excessive drama, and large rewards.
I wasn’t positive what to make of the non-theatrical “Otello,” nevertheless it was really a fantastic alternative — an opera that takes on new dimensions via its live performance remedy. (And never simply because one should die standing.)
“Otello” is about as late as Verdi will be. The composer’s penultimate opera premiered in 1887 and was adopted by an prolonged retreat/meant retirement from opera. As such, it is stuffed with repressed musical concepts. With out staging, lighting and costumes, concepts turn out to be structure, the rating turns into the set, and the psychological depth of Verdi’s music takes heart stage – particularly below Noseda, who introduced his authoritative strategy to element to the music with out abandoning any of it. Explosives required.
Thus, the opening storm of “spooky trumpets” over a roaring ground of bass and below the mixed glow of the choirs was each scenic and deeply satisfying. The identical goes for the best way the storm appeared to interrupt upon the doorway of tenor Arsene Sogomonyan as Otello – the music on stage got here alive with a kinetic presence that solely the pit may crush. My notes from Act III – through which Noseda incites Othello’s anger into a fantastic fireplace – are only a row of exclamation marks.
Sogomonyan gave a fantastic (if considerably flabby) efficiency of Otello – the surprising heaviness of his tenor regularly (after which rapidly) fraying on the edges as his thoughts slips and the proverbial cookie crumbles.
Soprano Erica Grimaldi’s Desdemona got here alive whereas loss of life reigned supreme within the opera’s second half. The beautiful ‘Piangea cantando nell’erma Landa’ showcased the purity of the diamond; The “Hail, Maria” that adopted, with dramatic ease. Noseda’s mild introduction of the heavy fourth act – a wonderful passage for oboe, flute, piccolo and horn – had the impact of fully remodeling the ensemble.
Noseda not solely introduced out the music but additionally the musicality of Iago’s machinations – the intricate, nearly baroque designs of his deception. Or, when messing with Cassio, sinister undercurrents emerge beneath the foamy floor of their friendship. Powerfully sung – and with admirably speedy irreverence – by baritone Roman Burdenko, this was an Iago that sounded traditional and canon with a fierce confidence that sounded new and up to date, what we might now name “toxic.” Noseda obscures Iago’s lies with harmless violins and sharpens Verdi’s hooks to make them linger within the reminiscence like cultivated doubts.
I cherished mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano’s pretty Emilia, whose transient however participating alternatives on stage made me neglect that this wasn’t a theatrical efficiency. I used to be notably impressed by Francesco Marseille’s Cassio, whose clear, clear tone appeared like a sly, self-conscious foil to a Sogomonian music – and which felt appropriately perched on the brink. One thing concerning the synthetic brilliance of his voice, like a rapier or a navy medal – It made his poor remedy appear much more unfair.
Every time they’d the chance, they gave them lengthy applause. Whereas they have been stimulated by particular person melodies, or endings of acts, the power behind them was indirect, as if it was not the efficiency that obtained the accolades, however the expertise.
Opera concert events are a wonderful strategy to make opera occur extra usually, extra simply and with a level of musical amplification that you just won’t get in any other case. What I heard on Friday was an orchestra properly suited to the demanding calls for of opera, and an viewers that wished extra.
Opera in Live performance: Noseda conducting Verdi’s Otello Repeats Sunday at 3 p.m. on the Kennedy Heart, kennedy-center.com.
