Otello

Attractive because repulsive - that's one way to describe the contradictory fascination potential of William Shakespeare's most enigmatic character, Othello. He probably could not have existed at the time of his creation: Black, a stranger, yet having risen to the top of Venetian society through merit and spectacular eloquence, he marries the beautiful Desdemona. But of course his entourage resents him, who they believe should be entitled to less. Othello's closest confidant Iago instigates a jealous intrigue that leads to Othello killing first his bride and then himself. Arrigo Boito, the congenial librettist of Giuseppe Verdi's late work, places Iago's commitment to cruelty at the center of the drama as an equal element to virtue. By falling back on Othello's socially agreed otherness, Iago succeeds in bending the circumstances back in favor of a supposed order: one in which Othello is once again relegated to the bottom of the racialized hierarchy. As one of the most exciting operatic works of the late 19th century, Verdi's Otello also presents us with a problem: who should actually take responsibility for this white fantasy of blackness? Director and set designer Silvia Costa's expansively sensual staging of Juditha triumphans brings the underlying constructions into focus: who defines from where and with what language what is foreign and what is their own, who is worthy and who is rejected? Together with conductor Stefano Montanari, who returns to the Stuttgart State Opera at
after an exciting house debut with Iphigénie en Tauride and a brilliant Platée series, their examination of Shakespeare, Verdi and Boito promises to be an exciting journey through the different soul spaces of one of the most ambivalent figures in theater history.

Dramma lirico in four acts
Libretto by Arrigo Boito based on the play of the same name Othello by William Shakespeare

by Giuseppe Verdi