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Andante.com, October 2001 |
By Heidi Waleson |
Otello, Chicago, 22 September 2001
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Lyric Opera of Chicago Has Two Winners
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Renée Fleming takes top honors in Otello
(while a lively supporting cast animates Street Scene.) |
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Verdi: Otello
Ben Heppner (tenor) - Otello
Renée Fleming (soprano) - Desdemona
Lucio Gallo (baritone) - Iago
Jonas Kaufmann (tenor) - Cassio
Orchestra and Chorus of the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Andrew Davis (conductor)
Peter Hall (director)
Saturday 13 October 2001
Civic Opera House, Chicago
Produced by Lyric Opera of Chicago
Renée Fleming's incandescent Desdemona at Lyric Opera of Chicago was an
extraordinary event — the kind of performance, joining heart-stopping
singing with pinpoint acting — that makes you forget that you're in the
theater and it's just make-believe. In the first three acts, Ms. Fleming's
appealingly feisty characterization created a fascinating tension — how long
would it take this bright, open woman, who actually laughed playfully during
the Act One love duet, to realize that her confident happiness has been
destroyed? We found out in a shattering Act Four. "Salce, salce,"
exquisitely sung, an expression of the purest, most heartbroken pain, was
followed by an even more poignant "Ave Maria," a struggle through prayer
that seemed finally to bring her an exhausted peace. Peter Hall's directing
was just as natural and real as the singing, and when Ms. Fleming hugged the
statue of the Virgin to her heart like a beloved doll, she seemed like a
child who knows she has lost everything.
Ben Heppner, singing his first staged Otello in Chicago, is still finding
his way with this pinnacle of the dramatic tenor repertoire. He took a
cautious, lyrical approach to the role, concentrating on beautiful sound
rather than excited abandon. It was persuasive, especially when he let the
savagery get the upper hand in his first confrontation with Desdemona in Act
Three, but Otello does need to rage a little more. Lucio Gallo was a
forceful, oily Iago and Jonas Kaufmann a fine Cassio; Andrew Davis led
the eloquently paced performance. John Gunter's sets and costumes updated
the action to the early 19th century and put the first three acts in a
claustrophobic, multi-galleried interior that suggested a temporary (wood,
not stone) garrison in a hot place. One got tired of looking at it, and
Desdemona's bedroom, for which the whole set was draped tent-like in white,
was a visual relief.
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