★★★☆☆
British opera fans are teeming with green-ey’d monsters this summer, since tickets for Jonas Kaufmann’s performances in the title role of Verdi’s Otello are as few on the ground as upbeat cabinet ministers. And with every appearance by the German star, expectations rise another notch.
Kaufmann’s imaginative first take is true to the tenor’s instincts: power deployed alongside studied moments of stillness, the voice sometimes thinned down to a whisper. In Keith Warner’s production we first see him raised up from the crowd, motionless in his armour, eyes to Heaven, a Titian portrait come to life.
Having delivered his trumpety cry of victory, Kaufmann’s switch to vulnerable ardour in the love duet that closes the first act is beautifully done. Muttering of his bloody