Editing Otello (section)

==Performance history==
[[File:Desdemona_(soprano),_figurino_di_Alfredo_Edel_per_Otello_(1887)_-_Archivio_Storico_Ricordi_ICON000887.jpg|thumb|Costume design by [[Alfredo Edel]] for Desdemona in Act IV|upright=1.3]]

===Premiere===
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2018}}

As the Italian public became aware that the retired Verdi was composing another opera, rumors about it abounded. At the same time, many of the most illustrious conductors, singers and opera-house managers in Europe were vying for an opportunity to play a part in ''Otello''{{'}}s premiere, despite the fact that Faccio and La Scala, Milan, had already been selected as the conductor and the venue for the first performance. The two male protagonists had been selected, too: Italy's foremost dramatic [[tenor]], [[Francesco Tamagno]], was to sing Otello while the esteemed French singing-actor [[Victor Maurel]] would assume the villainous [[baritone]] role of Iago. [[Romilda Pantaleoni]], a well-known singing-actress, was assigned Desdemona's [[soprano]] part.

Upon the completion of the opera, preparations for the initial performance were conducted in absolute secrecy and Verdi reserved the right to cancel the premiere up to the last minute. In particular, the composer expressed reservations about Tamagno's softer singing, though not about the power and ring of his vocalism in dramatic passages of the score.

Verdi need not have worried: ''Otello''{{'}}s debut proved to be a resounding success. The audience's enthusiasm for Verdi was shown by the 20 curtain calls that he took at the end of the opera. Further stagings of ''Otello'' soon followed at leading theatres throughout Europe and America.

===Subsequent productions===
The opera was first seen in the US at the [[Academy of Music (New York City)|Academy of Music]] in New York on 16 April 1888 and in the UK on 5 July 1889 in London.{{sfn|Kimbell|2001|p=1008}} At its first appearance in [[Vienna]] (14 March 1888), the title role was sung by [[Hermann Winkelmann]], who had created the title role in [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]]'s ''[[Parsifal]]'' at Bayreuth in 1882.<ref>Alfred Loewenberg, ''Annals of Opera 1597–1940'', Rowman and Littlefield, 1978, column 1127. For Winkelmann, see [[Kutsch, K. J.]]; [[Riemens, Leo]] (2003). ''[[Großes Sängerlexikon]]'' (fourth edition, in German), p. 5067. Munich: K. G. Saur. {{ISBN|9783598115981}}.</ref>

''Otello'' was given its Paris premiere by the [[Paris Opera|Opéra]] at the [[Palais Garnier]] on 12 October 1894 with [[Albert Saléza]] in the title role, [[Rose Caron]] as Desdemona, and [[Paul Taffanel]] conducting. It was performed in a French translation by [[Arrigo Boito]] and [[Camille Du Locle]].<ref name=Wolff>Stéphane Wolff, ''L'Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962)'', Paris: Slatkine, 1962, p. 165.</ref> Verdi composed a short ballet for the finale of Act 3 (ceremony of welcome for the Venetian ambassadors).{{sfn|Kimbell|2001|p=1008}} The production was directed by [[Alexandre Lapissida]], the costumes were designed by Charles Bianchini, and the sets, by Marcel Jambon (Act I); {{Ill|Amable Petit|lt=Amable|fr|Amable (1846-1916)}} and Eugène Gardy (Act II); [[Eugène Louis Carpezat|Eugène Carpezat]] (Act III); and [[Auguste Alfred Rubé]] and [[Philippe Chaperon]] (Act IV).<ref name=Wolff/>
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<gallery mode="packed" heights="250">
File:Press illustration by A de Parys of a 1894 performance in Paris of the opera Otello by Verdi – Gallica 2016.jpg|Illustration from ''[[Le Monde illustré]]'' of the 1894 Paris premiere
File:Marcel Jambon - Giuseppe Verdi - Otello Act I set design model.jpg|Set-design model by Marcel Jambon for Act 1 of the Paris premiere
</gallery>

Today, the opera is frequently performed throughout the world, a staple of the standard repertoire.<ref name=Operabase>{{cite web|title=Opera statistics|url=http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en|publisher=[[Operabase]]|access-date=14 October 2018|archive-date=5 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905080732/http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Roles, their demands, and the singers who met them===
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2018}}
[[File:Romilda Pantaleoni by Ganzini circa 1875.jpg|thumb|Romilda Pantaleoni, the first Desdemona]]
Since the three leading roles of the opera ([[Othello (character)|Otello]], [[Desdemona]] and [[Iago]]) are among Verdi's most demanding, both vocally and dramatically, some of the most illustrious singers of the past 130 years have made ''Otello'' part of their repertoire. Famous Otellos of the past have included Tamagno, the role's trumpet-voiced creator, as well as [[Giovanni Battista De Negri]], Albert Alvarez, [[Francesc Viñas]], [[Giuseppe Borgatti]], [[Antonio Paoli]], [[Giovanni Zenatello]], [[Renato Zanelli]], [[Giovanni Martinelli]], [[Aureliano Pertile]], [[Francesco Merli]], [[Giacomo Lauri-Volpi]], [[Frank Mullings]], [[Leo Slezak]], Jose Luccioni, [[Ramón Vinay]], [[Mario Del Monaco]], [[James McCracken]], [[Jon Vickers]], [[David Rendall]], [[Jeffrey Lawton]] and [[Carlo Cossutta]]. Pre-[[Second World War]] [[Richard Wagner|Wagnerian]] tenors such as [[Jacques Urlus]], [[Heinrich Knote]], Alexander Kirchner, [[Lauritz Melchior]] and [[Franz Völker]] also undertook the part (usually singing it in German). The Russian heroic tenor [[Ivan Yershov]] was a renowned pre-[[World War I]] Otello in his native country. His compatriot [[Arnold Azrikan]] achieved his greatest recognition as a dramatic tenor in Otello. For this performance he was awarded the [[State Stalin Prize|Stalin Prize]] in 1946.
[[Enrico Caruso]] was studying ''Otello'' when he died unexpectedly in 1921, thus thwarting the New York [[Metropolitan Opera]] company's plans to stage the opera as a new vehicle for its star tenor.

Currently, [[Plácido Domingo]] has appeared in more video productions of the opera than any other tenor.<ref>See [[Otello discography]]</ref> Also, he has recorded the complete role several times on CD and appeared in numerous stage productions of the work on both sides of the Atlantic. In his book ''My First Forty Years'', Domingo has written about different approaches over the years towards singing the role of Otello:<blockquote>
As to the other question — that of singing roles that, according to self-proclaimed experts, we ought not to be singing — I have a little story to tell. When I decided to sing Otello, many people told me that I was crazy. Mario Del Monaco, they said, had had the proper kind of voice for the role, and my voice was nothing like his. Twenty years earlier, Del Monaco had been warned not to sing Otello because his voice was nothing like that of Ramon Vinay, who was then performing the opera all over the world. Vinay, of course, had heard that only a tenor with a piercing sound like Giovanni Martinelli's ought to sing the part. Some years earlier, Martinelli had had Antonin Trantoul, who had sung Otello at La Scala in the twenties, held up to him as a shining example; but at La Scala, those who still remembered the very first Otello, Francesco Tamagno, had found Trantoul completely unsatisfactory. But there exists a letter from Verdi to his publisher in which the composer makes it quite clear that Tamagno left a great deal to be desired.{{sfn|Domingo|1993|p=127}}</blockquote>

A long lineage of renowned baritones have sung Iago since 1887. Among them: Victor Maurel (the role's first exponent), [[Mattia Battistini]], [[Mario Ancona]], [[Antonio Scotti]], [[Titta Ruffo]], [[Pasquale Amato]], [[Carlo Galeffi]] and [[Lawrence Tibbett]]. Leading post-war exponents of the part have included Giuseppe Valdengo, [[Leonard Warren]], [[Robert Merrill]], [[Tito Gobbi]], [[Sherrill Milnes]], [[Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau]] and [[James Morris (bass-baritone)|James Morris]]. Many lyric sopranos have also sung the role of Desdemona since 1887, including [[Renata Tebaldi]] (1954), [[Leonie Rysanek]] (1960), [[Gwyneth Jones (soprano)|Gwyneth Jones]] (1968), [[Mirella Freni]] (1974), [[Kiri Te Kanawa]] (1974), [[Margaret Price]] (1977), [[Renata Scotto]] (1978), [[Katia Ricciarelli]] (1985), [[Cheryl Studer]] (1993), [[Renée Fleming]] (1996) and [[Sonya Yoncheva]] (2015).

===Blackface controversy===
For many years it was common for white singers to wear dark makeup when playing Otello. The Metropolitan Opera stopped the practice in 2015.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/04/429366961/metropolitan-opera-to-drop-use-of-blackface-style-makeup-in-otello "Metropolitan Opera to Drop Use of Blackface-Style Makeup in 'Otello'"]. [[NPR]]. 4 August 2015. Retrieved on 26 November 2015.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/arts/music/debating-otello-blackface-and-casting-trends.html|title=Debating ''Otello'', Blackface and Casting Trends|date=1 October 2015|work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/arts/music/an-otello-without-the-blackface-nods-to-modern-tastes.html|title=An ''Otello'' Without Blackface Highlights an Enduring Tradition in Opera|date=20 September 2015|work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Some have argued that using dark makeup for the character is a matter of costuming, and not a true example of racist [[blackface]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/how-do-african-american-singers-feel-about-blackface-in-opera/2015/10/16/fbbaa318-7176-11e5-9cbb-790369643cf9_story.html|title=The rarity of black faces, not ''Otello'' in blackface, should be issue in opera|date=16 October 2015|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref> The Metropolitan decision led to calls for casting more people of color in opera.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/mets-otello-casting-begs-the-question-is-whitewash-better-than-blackface/article25879634/|title=Met's ''Otello'' casting begs the question: Is whitewash better than blackface?|date=7 August 2015|work=[[The Globe and Mail]]}}</ref>