Otello, the opera by Giuseppe Verdi, will be staged at the Teatro del Maggio from Saturday May 20 at 7 pm, conducted by Zubin Mehta and directed by Valerio Binasco.

The performance on May 26, 2023 will be broadcast live on Rete Toscana Classica

Thanks to the CR Firenze Foundation, the performance on 05/23/2023 is offered to the public with a 50% discount on tickets for each sector

Florence, May 18, 2023 – After the highly successful performances of the recently Don Giovanni, conductor emeritus Zubin Mehta returns to the podium of the Main Hall leading the Orchestra, Choir and Childrens Choir of the Accademia del Maggio for the second lyrical appointment scheduled for the 85th Maggio Musicale Festival: Otello, by Giuseppe Verdi, on stage from Saturday 20 May at 7 pm.

The show resumes the edition represented (exclusively on the Rai 5 channel, of Rai Cultura) in December 2020 during the period of the pandemic; directed by Valerio Binasco resumed by João Carvalho Aboim. The current staging is obviously no longer affected by the strong limitations imposed by the strict safety rules such as distancing, the minimum movements allowed to the artists and therefore allowed the theatrical actions, the interactions between the characters to finally return the show with its full dramatic and expressive energy. The different singing company compared to the television version, with the exception of Luca Salsi already present at the time and again in the current cast, is made up of Arsen Soghomonyan in the part of Othello; Luca Salsi – precisely – in the role of his ensign, Jago; the part of Desdemona, Otello’s wife, is played by Zarina Abaeva; Joseph Dahdah is Cassio; Adriano Gramigni plays Lodovico; Eleonora Filipponi is the maid of Desdemona, Emilia while Francesco Pittari plays Roderigo. The cast is completed by two members of the Accademia del Maggio: Eduardo Martínez who plays Montano and Matteo Mancini who plays the role of a herald.

The sets are by Guido Fiorato, the costumes are by Gianluca Falaschi while the lights by Pasquale Mari.

The Maestro of the Maggio Choir is Lorenzo Fratini, the Maestro of the Children’s Choir of the Accademia del Maggio is Sara Matteucci.

Three other performances are scheduled: on the 23rd (50% offered thanks to the CR Firenze Foundation), 26th and 31st May at 8pm.

Before each performance, presentations to the public of the shows held by Katiuscia Manetta, Maddalena Bonechi and Marco Cosci are proposed: the guides are held in the Foyer of the Sala Zubin Mehta and in the Gallery Foyer of the Sala Grande approximately 45 minutes before the start of each play.

The conductor emeritus Zubin Mehta returns to the podium of the Maggio for the second lyric title of the 85th Maggio Festival: Otello, the penultimate lyrical masterpiece of Verdi’s magnificent catalog and by far one of the most loved works by the “Busseto Swann”. Othello, written to a libretto by Arrigo Boito, was born out of their shared love for William Shakespeare. This will lead Boito to also sign the next (and last) opera by Verdi, Falstaff, also inspired by the works of the “Bard of Avon” and scheduled at Maggio starting from June 16 to June 23.

The opera, which saw Verdi’s return to the stage sixteen years after his last work, was put on the bill a total of eight times in the opera season at Maggio, and the last two performances, the one broadcast on Rai5 on December 2020 and the performances of June 2003, directed by Maestro Mehta.

The staging takes up precisely that of the television version, directed by Valerio Binasco (show direction by João Carvalho Aboim) who thought of an Otello set in: “A place under siege that awaits the arrival of its savior, its leader: Otello. Cyprus, like Sarajevo in times of war or like a city in Syria today, eagerly awaits the arrival of its hero who belongs to another people. Regarding the show and the directorial project, I must say that I concentrated on the family drama between Otello and Desdemona; is a heartbreaking love drama that takes place in a war zone. There is a continuous oscillation between a great story: Venice, Cyprus, Otello as an archetype and then the smaller one of a husband and wife who both suffer from one of the strangest and most atrocious ailments that can strike a couple “too much love”, the wrong love, victims of the worst demon that exists which is love. Othello is a man who knows how to win wars but doesn’t know how to win the power of love at home”. João Carvalho Aboim, in commenting on the resumption of the show, underlined not only how much the two faces of Otello’s character have been analysed, but how important it was to work alongside the maestro Zubin Mehta: “We tried to concentrate on those who are the ‘two faces’ of Otello within the Verdi story; the hero who triumphantly returns at the beginning of the work and the man who instead acts within the relationship with Desdemona and within the walls of his house, an apparently peaceful situation but which will be destroyed by Jago, corroded by ambitions and thirst for power. Working with master Zubin Mehta was truly unique, he brought his experience, which was also invaluable for what concerns our work. Fortunately, despite starting from a directorial base of distancing and almost immobility (due to the pandemic of course), we managed, also thanks to the great work of the choir and the performers, to enhance the already splendid work of maestro Binasco”.

The artistic ensemble consists of Arsen Soghomonyan in the lead role, Otello; in his debut on the Maggio scene; speaking of his character he underlined how difficult it is, from a psychological point of view, to be able to understand the reasoning and the choices made by the Moor: “Otello is an interesting and complex role for me, since I partly have to find an explanation as to why he commits certain actions, why he chooses to believe Iago when he tells him that his beloved wife has cheated on him with Cassio; why can a man, a general with a brilliant mind, get jealous and end up believing this? Finally, sadly, he kills Desdemona and himself, and in this splendid production we have all tried to explore, and thus convey, what Shakespeare intended as a response to these in his play and how Verdi decided to show it in his.

Luca Salsi, one of the most celebrate Verdi interpreters of our time and who returns to Maggio after Tosca (in concert form) and again conducted by Zubin Mehta in may 2021, plays Jago, Otello’s ensign as well as one of the most ruthless antagonists in literature and opera, already interpreted by the baritone in the performances broadcast on Rai5. On that occasion Salsi debuted the role in Italy and is the only artist of the previous cast to be in the poster even now. Now returning to the staging that no longer has the stringent limitations imposed by the pandemic for the actions on stage makes him say: “Compared to then, I can interact with Choir and with the other characters; there is a lively theatrical and expressive dimension, as theater should be. And I can be Jago following precisely Verdi’s precise indications: he is a sneaky man, a snake, ready to strike you suddenly ”.

The part of Desdemona, wife of the Moor, is played by Zarina Abaeva, also making her debut on the Florentine stage; Joseph Dahdah, a former student of the Accademia del Maggio and now ‘in his home’ at the Maggio, is Cassio, another character object of Jago’s jealousy and envy, since he was appointed lieutenant by Otello in his place while Adriano Gramigni, another ex a student of the Academy and one of the protagonists of the recent Don Giovanni , he plays Lodovico, ambassador of the Venetian Republic.

Eleonora Filipponi, making her debut in her role, plays Desdemona’s trusted handmaid, Emilia: “For me it is a great emotion to be able to debut in this role, above all to be able to do it under the direction of the great maestro Zubin Mehta. With the director we immediately tried to give great importance to every aspect, character and musical. Emilia is a character who at first glance may appear secondary but who, in the story that is told, acquires enormous importance: on the one hand she experiences, with pain, her love with Jago, a violent love as well as her character ; on the other she lives a ‘relationship’ of closeness, friendship and great affection with Desdemona, of whom she is the handmaid. A closeness that leads her to be very empathetic with her and with her pain, due to the tremendous suspicions that Othello has towards her; this closeness will be evident throughout the IV act”.

Francesco Pittari plays Roderigo, a Venetian gentleman envious of the relationship between Othello and Desdemona because he is in love with the latter, returning to take on the role of the nobleman after the performance in December 2020.
Eduardo Martínez and Matteo Mancini, two talents from the Accademia del Maggio, close the cast playing respectively Montano and Un herald; in the performance of 31/05 the role of the Herald will instead be played by Eduardo Martínez.

The opera:
After the success of Aida Verdi had decided to retire from the stage. Professional life had given him everything: glory, money, undying fame. With Aida he could say goodbye to the successful season of nineteenth-century melodrama; for too long he now he felt the weight of a musical theater in crisis that was struggling to find new dramatic and formal ways. But the encounter with the disheveled Arrigo Boito brings the Maestro from Busseto back on the road to opera. Verdi, like Boito, is eager for experimental and innovative poetic solutions and is already projected towards the emancipation of melodrama from the system of closed numbers. The understanding between the two was born under the sign of Shakespeare, an author whom Verdi had loved and chased throughout his life. The first fruit of the fortunate partnership was Otello, which made its triumphant debut at the Scala in Milan on 5 February 1887. Pass through his 74, Verdi demonstrated an astonishing capacity for renewal, covering Boito’s verses in an unexpected and original way. Abandoning the security of the closed number for the open form, the composer gives life to a mobile and continuous melodic flow. With one eye on Wagner and one on the Italian theatrical tradition, Verdi thus marks the point of arrival of his exceptional creative parable.