Word: pavarotti
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Fortunately, this Otello is an impressive offering that should gain a place as one of the standard versions of the opera. The project was a gamble: A not-so-young Pavarotti left concerts in front of royalty and football fans to tackle the role of Otello, a notoriously difficult one, for the first time. What's more, Pavarotti brought his radiant tenor to a tragic role usually sung by deeper voices. This calculated risk almost turned to disaster when most of the principals and the conductor took ill before the performances that were to provide the material for the recording...
...turned out, the first performance was an astonishing success, and Pavarotti (who munched on pieces of apple during the choruses to keep his throat clear) sang an inspired Otello. This is what comes across on the CD: From the Esultate which marks his entry in the storm-tossed first act to his dying embrace of the martyred Desdemona, Pavarotti sings with the passion of the warrior who boils with jealousy. His lyrical voice is audibly more at ease in passages such as the love duet at the end of the first act, but he doesn't shrink from the over...
...Kanawa is an appropriately ingenuous Desdemona and sustains the first half of the last act beautifully with the "Willow Song" and the Ave Maria. Although her performance doesn't mesh entirely with Pavarotti's careful reading of his role (especially in the first-act love duet, which comes across more as two parallel soliloquies), her characterization is admirable, and she comes into her own in the second-act scene where she is admired by the chorus of men, women and children...
Beside the two other principals, Nucci is disappointing as Iago. His voice doesn't seem to provide the kind of deeply treacherous character that the role demands, and, in duets with Pavarotti's passionate warrior, Nucci comes across as an insipid foil rather than a calculating fiend. The tremendous aria Credo in un Dio crudel is unspectacular, and the orchestra actually unseats Nucci in places with its impressive rendering of Verdi's meticulously detailed score. Anthony Rolfe Johnson provides a beautiful Cassio, whose innocent virtue is not equalled by Nucci's sinister duplicity...
...faintly audible coughs, crowd noise does not detract. The few stage effects are effective rather than intrusive (especially Emilia's insistent knocking at the end of the last act). Overall, this is a powerful interpretation of Verdi's incredible tapestry, and it is led by an indefatigable hero. Bravo Pavarotti...