Opera Review: Going For the Throat

Stuart Skelton debuts in Otello.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

There's been a nasty cold rampaging around New York this month. It struck down your faithful correspondent last week, and also afflicted tenor Stuart Skelton, star of the Met's revival of Verdi's Otello. The tenor, acclaimed for his portrayal of Wagner heroes, was scheduled to sing the role for the first time at the Met last Friday, but it wasn't until Monday night that the big man felt well enough to appear. This revival of the Met's season-opening 2015 production featured Mr. Skelton opposite two of that show's stars: soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Desdemona and baritone Zeljko Lučić as the conniving Iago.

Opera Review: It Ain't Exactly Shakespeare

Loft Opera mounts the Rossini Otello.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A word before you go: Otello (Bernard Holcomb) assaults Desdemona (Cecilia Lopez) in Rossini's opera.
Photo by Robert Altman for LoftOpera.

LoftOpera opened its 2017 season last night, choosing LightSpace Studio, a high-ceilinged, white-walled warehouse on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick as the venue for the company's first staging of Rossini's Otello. Yes, you read that right. There's a (now mostly forgotten) Rossini version of this Shakespeare story, written back in 1816 and a pinnacle of the repertory before it was eclipsed by the Giuseppe Verdi opera from 1887. This performance marked the first New York staging in forty years.

Opera Review: Unmoored

Otello at the Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He is nothing if not critical: Falk Struckmann as Iago in the Met's Otello.
Photo © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's ambitious slate of Verdi operas continued this month with a revival of Verdi's Otello. The plan: to reunite tenor Johan Botha with soprano Renée Fleming, a pairing that proved potent in 2008. But on Tuesday night, Mr. Botha cancelled due to illness, leaving the challenging title role to Russian tenor August Amonov.