[Met Performance] CID:279350
Otello {250} Metropolitan Opera House: 01/21/1985.
(Debuts: Margaret Price, Gwynne Howell
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
January 21, 1985
OTELLO {250}
Giuseppe Verdi--Arrigo Boito
Otello..................Plácido Domingo
Desdemona...............Margaret Price [Debut]
Iago....................Sherrill Milnes
Emilia..................Jean Kraft
Cassio..................William Lewis
Lodovico................Gwynne Howell [Debut]
Montŕno.................John Darrenkamp
Roderigo................Charles Anthony
Herald..................Vernon Hartman
Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............Franco Zeffirelli
Stage Director..........Fabrizio Melano
Set designer............Franco Zeffirelli
Costume designer........Peter J. Hall
Lighting designer.......Gil Wechsler
Otello received five performances this season.
Revival gift of the Edith C. Blum Foundation
Review of Peter G. Davis in New York Magazine
The Met's musically superior "Otello" is distinguished by Margaret Price, whose luscious voice is in its mature prime…"
Few opera companies could come up with a better "Otello" cast than the polished team presently on view at the Metropolitan. Most of the ingredients in Franco Zeffirelli's luxuriously packaged, gift-box production are familiar: Placido Domingo still brings many exquisite vocal refinements to the title role, Sherrill Milnes continues to improve his Iago, and the orchestra plays the score more magnificently than ever, under James Levine's direction. This revival is further distinguished by some particularly lovely singing from Margaret Price, who has finally made her long-delayed Met debut as Desdemona.
Despite all these good things, the Met's "Otello" remains curiously uninvolving. Some audiences will undoubtedly leave these suavely accomplished, businesslike performances convinced that Verdi's opera is little more than an entertaining, smoothly oiled piece of theatrical machinery rather than a shattering music drama. If so, the cosmetic superficiality of Zeffirelli's production is partially to blame, although there is also more than a hint of the impersonal, calculated routine that takes over whenever a starry operatic cast decides to go on automatic pilot.
Even so, judged purely as a musical experience, this is a superior "Otello," and the one newcomer, Margaret Price, must surely rank as a major addition to the Met roster. The soprano should have been singing with the company at least fifteen years ago, and to its credit the Met did faithfully court her during most of that time. Unfortunately for us, Price, like so many important and extremely busy singers, apparently ranks New York low on her list of priorities - I wonder, in fact, when we will next hear her at the Met. Her voice sounds very much at home in this vast auditorium as it opens freely, blooms lusciously, and sensitively caresses the notes. The tone quality has a pure, silvery, almost instrumental timbre - a bit too cool for some tastes perhaps, but the instincts that motivate each phrase are invariably expressive, musical, and intelligent. Despite her generous physical proportions and restrained stage personality, Price projects a graceful and dignified presence as Desdemona, a part that brings out all of her most appealing vocal qualities.