Giuseppe Verdi: Otello

1 Full DVD9 | NTSC | All Regions | 4:3 | DTS 5.1, PCM Stereo | VO: italian | 6,25 GB

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese  | Timing: 140 min

Dvd Release Date 2005 | + Full Booklet

Actors:

Otello... Jon Vickers

Desdemona... Mirella Freni

Jago... Peter Glossop

Emilia... Stefania Malagù

Cassio... Aldo Bottion

Conductor: Herbert Von Karajan

Artistic Supervisor: Herbert Von Karajan

This film by Hebert von Karajan is the best rendition of Verdi's "Otello" available in any video format. The conducting and singing are superb and the drama is expressed with the utmost intensity. Jon Vickers is the best Otello in recent memory, superior even to Placido Domingo in vocal and dramatic power. Mirella Freni is a bit light-voiced for Desdemona, but she sings beautifully and looks like an angel. Peter Glossop sings the role of Iago with beauty and power, and sets just the right tone of evil playfulness. Picture and sound quality are both just fine. The supporting cast is wonderful, too, and includes Jose van Dam (Lodovico) and Michel Senechal (Roderigo).

Karajan's cinematography is not as polished as Zeffirelli's, but it does present the essentials of the drama honestly and straightforwardly. The Zeffirelli film, although it has an excellent cast and looks beautiful, is an abomination. Starting with a perfectly good soundtrack, Zeffirelli proceeded to destroy Verdi's dramatic and musical conception by cutting out little snippets of the score (seemingly almost at random) to bring his movie to a length of less than two hours. As far as I know, his film has never been issued on DVD. I hope nobody bothers with it. Karajan's film is more stagebound and the lip synch isn't perfect, but his version is complete and dramatically compelling.

Buy

www.amazon.com