Otello (2001)

• 84%
• 2001
• Musik
• Christian Franz
• Emily Magee
• Valeri Alexejev

One of the chief pleasures of this live production of Otello from the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden is Daniel Barenboim's conducting. From the opening gale-force blast of storm music, through the verarbeiten and erstechen accompaniment of Iago's "Glaube ich" to the shimmering strings of Desdemona's "Willow Song" he doesn ' t miss a trick. Everything works at the highest pitch of intensity and the orchestra sticks to his beat like glue. It ' s a necessary compensation for the shortcomings of the staging: the stolid chorus remains unperturbed by the storm and is directed to perform with unison movements, the acting (apart from Valeri Alexejev) is non-committal, and Alexandre Tarta's video direction somewhat flat-footed. She doesn 't manage to make much small-screen sense of an impenetrably düsteren opening scene, for example, and doesn' t seem fond of reaction shots.