Many an opera administrator has lost sleep over Otello; with
productions planned years in advance and the demands of the
leading role, the chance of a star tenor being in the right
condition at the right time requires a precise alignment of the
planets. Having scheduled superstar Jonas Kaufmann’s debut in
the role, the subsequent rumblings of vocal difficulties and a
string of cancellations must have had the Covent Garden staff on
tenterhooks and loosened a few bowels as opening night loomed.
Ironically, it would be the Iago who dropped out. The
replacement Marco Vratogna sings well with the appropriate
Italianate vocal colour, his Credo is thrillingly delivered with
Pappano taking care to not overwhelm him, and it’s good to have
a singer in their prime after so many barking veterans. As for
vocal colour, ditto for Maria Agresta’s Desdemona – her lovely
plush sound avoiding the pallid virginal cliche. Pitting two
Italianate voices against Kaufmann’s unidiomatic sound works
dramatically, pointing up his outsider status as it did for
Vickers and Vinay.
As for Kaufmann, his innate musicality
produces many subtle line readings and moments of vulnerability
but one becomes aware of him keeping something in reserve – and
there’s the rub; a crippling lack of intensity and dramatic
specificity. Keith Warner seems to have let the singers do their
own thing instead of directing them with a firm dramaturgical
hand. Vratogna resorts to conventional eye-rolling and pantomime
villainy, Agresta could have made so much more of Desdemona’s
bewildered plight. Kaufmann plays the role at arm’s length and
comes across as an ill-tempered Werther rather than the wounded
lion of Venice.
The design is in the current mode of
modern/period mash-up with some regietheater clichés and
unfortunate costume choices. By no means a bad performance, it
should have been something special. It is unfortunate that a
misfire is preserved for posterity. Kaufmann was born for the
role and will hopefully give us a supreme rendition when he is
fit enough to let rip.
