Last June, Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra inaugurated a new series which they called “Opera in Concert.” Their first offering was Verdi’s Otello. Maestro Noseda, who is also the General Music Director at the Zurich Opera, wrote that in performing concert opera, “what I try to achieve is for the orchestra to play in a more flexible, in a more cantabile (singing) way. I’m convinced that sometimes opera in concert will serve the music more, without any kind of distraction.”
“Otello,” he added, is “the penultimate opera composed by Verdi in his seventies--so he was a very mature composer. It’s the second of three operas with Shakespearean subjects: the first is Macbeth, and the third (and his last opera) is Falstaff. Otello is a very complex and refined opera. In terms of orchestration, it’s a step forward from the achievement in Aida and the Requiem that were the two pieces composed before Otello. And of course, it’s a drama of jealousy, anger, envy-- of revenge and power. There are also elements of racism, because of course Iago is also against Otello because Otello is a Moor. He cannot accept that someone not White is just given power by Venice.”
This month’s NSO Showcase on WETA Classical will feature the recording by our own Charles Lawson of the NSO’s Kennedy Center performance. The orchestra was joined by an international cast of singers including the Armenian tenor and frequent interpreter of Otello, Arsen Soghomonyan, Italian lyric soprano Erika Grimaldi as Desdemona and Russian baritone Roman Burdenko as Iago. The choral forces featured the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the University of Maryland Concert Choir, and the Children’s Chorus of Washington--a powerful combination for the cataclysmic storm that opens the opera!
NSO Showcase is the next best thing to having a seat at the stunning live performance. Take it from the Washington Classical Review: “Noseda is too much of an opera guy, and particularly an Italian opera guy...he likes grace...but he also gets drama. The result was scintillating, edge-of-the-seat Verdi, played throughout with an extra awareness of just how beautiful the score really is.”
Tune in to NSO Showcase for Verdi’s Otello in concert on July 2 or stream the program this month at WETAClassical.org.
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