Sunday Classics: Does Verdi's Jago really believe he's evil because he was created by an evil God?

Curtain up! We like to start at -- or at least get back to -- the beginning. Since we're looking at the opening of Act II of Otello, here's the orchestral introduction again, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan, from their 1961 Decca Otello.

by Ken

I just said in the caption that we're hearing the orchestral inroduction to Act II of Verdi's Otello "again" because we already heard it in Friday night's preview, as part of the complete opening scene, through Jago's "Credo." As we've noted, Otello has no formal overture or even formal prelude, but all four acts have utterly astonishing orchestral introductions. The Act II introduction leads directly into the brief scene in which Jago draws the disgraced Cassio deeper into his net while pretending to show him how to get back into Otello's good graces. Clearly, the orchestral introduction speaks to us of Jago's honeyed persuasiveness, and of the devious mind underlying it. That devious mind is, approximately, our subject today.

In a moment we're going to hear the full opening scene again -- the orchestral introduction, Jago's seduction (more or less) of Cassio, and then the rage that erupts when he has a moment to himself.


We already saw a clip of Bryn singing the "Credo" Friday night, from back in 1996, and since I don't really like beating up on the clips, and that one was better than pretty much all the "Credo" video clips I sampled (the general level ranging from ghastly to hellacious), I gave it a pass. But if it struck you that he hadn't quite absorbed the music into his voice, I absolutely agree.

Now we're in 2010, and it's kind of distressing to hear that the voice seems shorn of most of its singing quality. (You'd like to hope it was just a bad night.). Perhaps more alarming, though, is the cartoonishness of the "interpretation." Yes, Bryn sort of gets that Jago is angry, but I'm not sure he really gets just how angry the man is, because he doesn't seem to have gotten beyond the childish notion that Jago really thinks he's evil because God is evil, and he by God shows us just how evil he is.

As I noted Friday, there has always been controversy concerning this one major change (as opposed to compression) made by librettist Arrigo Boito and composer Giuseppe Verdi in their operafication of Shakespeare's Othello: the addition of Jago's seemingly "explanatory" monologue, which begins, "I believe in a cruel God who created me in his image."


COULD JAGO POSSIBLY MEAN SOMETHING MORE WHEN
HE SAYS HE'S EVIL BECAUSE HE'S HUMAN? CLICK HERE

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