Otello – Premiere

In the organizer's words:

MUSIC THEATER

Theater am Goetheplatz

Opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi
Text by Arrigo Boito after William Shakespeare
In Italian with German surtitles
Musical direction: Sasha Yankevych
Director: Frank Hilbrich

Iago feels ignored. He strikes back. Slowly and steadily, he whispers to Otello that his wife Desdemona is being unfaithful. The seed is sown: Doubt gnaws at Otello, the poison of suspicion bores into his body, his self-esteem wanes, thoughts of destruction break out.

The 70-year-old Verdi had not written an opera for twelve years until Arrigo Boito gave him a libretto based on Shakepeare's original. Verdi wrote in secret, refusing to commit to specific performance plans. The work about an intrigue that falls on fertile ground, which was nevertheless premiered in 1887, pulled Verdi's oeuvre into the modern age: in this opera there are no longer any self-contained musical forms. It is a continuous, free, powerful fantasy about a man whose social position is so exposed and unstable that he destroys himself.