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Stuart Skelton
‘This role has been on my radar for a while’ … Stuart Skelton
‘This role has been on my radar for a while’ … Stuart Skelton

Verdi’s Otello: a role to approach with caution

This article is more than 9 years old

Described as a ‘voice killer’, it is one of the most demanding parts in opera. Tenor Stuart Skelton explains why he is now ready to take it on

We’re very lucky that Verdi wrote Otello in the first place. After Aida, premiered in 1871 when he was 58, he effectively retired, and it was only his publisher, Ricordi, who convinced him to write another opera. Ricordi must have had the patience of a saint: it took him years just to get Verdi interested in the idea of returning to opera, and Otello didn’t premiere until 16 years later. It’s tantalising to imagine what other masterpieces we might have if Verdi had capitulated more quickly. But as it is, we have both Otello and Falstaff from that late period, two of the greatest operas Verdi wrote.

For me, what sets Otello apart is that, even though Verdi was in his 70s, and pretty much an éminence grise of Italian opera, it is a remarkably progressive score: he is not rehashing old successes or resting on his laurels. Maybe it is my own biases, but in Otello I think you can hear Verdi giving in a little to the inescapable influence of Wagner. Yes, there are standalone arias and set pieces, and the style is unmistakably Italianate, but that slightly rum-ti-tum bel canto quality that you find in the earlier operas is basically gone, the whole score feels much more seamless and through-composed – something you generally associate with Wagner more than Verdi.

The title role is also one of the few Verdi tenor parts that can be successfully sung by a Wagnerian voice, so it’s been on my radar for a while as one of the rare chances I might have to delve into Italian repertoire. I did quite a few Cavaradossis and Alfredos at the start of my career, and I love singing Pagliacci’s Canio, but generally speaking, if you’re a blond, blue-eyed tenor who can swing a sword and sing Lohengrin, then that’s what you’re cast for. Which is fine by me, and that is certainly where my voice is in its element, but it is fantastic to have the chance to combine those two vocal worlds

But Otello is still a role that any tenor approaches with caution. Some people call it a “voice killer”. I don’t believe that – a role will only kill your voice if you shouldn’t be singing it in the first place – but it is incredibly taxing, both vocally and emotionally. You need a huge degree of stamina, to be equally comfortable at the top and bottom of your range, and you need to cut through some very heavy orchestration and ensembles, while retaining as much beauty of tone as possible. And then, from a dramatic point of view, you have to convince both as the military hero of Act I, and then as a vulnerable, volatile and ultimately broken man.

And of course you are following in two separate sets of footsteps: the operatic incarnation of the character, and Shakespeare’s original, which can only deepen your take on the role. Both come with a long history of iconic performances. But I have learned, particularly through singing Peter Grimes, where comparisons with your predecessors are inevitable, that you can only focus on doing the best job you can and doing justice, as far as you are able, to the score and the character. I am aware of the history of Otello/Othello but I am not letting it intimidate me.

In Shakespeare’s play’s prologue – which was not set by Verdi and his librettist Boito – you get to see how much overt racism there is against Othello. The opera’s audience starts not knowing any of that: you have to establish very quickly that Otello is a powerful and respected military leader but is fatally flawed. He cannot believe that Desdemona really loves him, and is always looking for reasons why people don’t like him. This terrible weakness is fatally exploited by Iago.

Stuart Skelton as Peter Grimes at the English National Opera. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

To a certain extent the opera has the advantage on the play as the music can do much of the work for us in setting tone, creating tension, even telling us what is going to happen. The compression of Boito’s libretto – the whole thing runs at less than three hours – means that we are essentially watching someone beat themselves to death. A horrible experience, and the pace does not let up for a minute.

There is a wonderful quote from Placido Domingo about the role of Otello and the ideally “appropriate” voice for it. To paraphrase, he rattles off a succession of very well known and well respected exponents of the role, all of whom we now consider exemplary – but all of whom were told at the time they took it on that they could not possibly be right for it because their voices were not the same as the previous generation’s “perfect” Otello. The list includes Domingo himself.

I had this same conversation with myself as I considered whether to take it on. With so much German repertoire in my career (it has, and continues to form the backbone of my engagements well into the future) I questioned whether I was the right voice. Is the sound Italianate enough? Is the tessitura too strenuous? Can I play a credible romantic lead, at least in Act One?

But ultimately the presence of both Ed Gardner (conducting) and David Alden (directing) was a huge draw – they are two of my absolute favourite colleagues and also great friends and in the end, they decided it for me. We worked together on Peter Grimes in 2009, and I trust them absolutely – if they thought I could do it, then so be it. David knows me and my strengths so well, and how to play to them. He sometimes says: “This will work better for you than this,” - either musically or dramatically. And suddenly, out of nowhere, there is a gear change and it turns out he was right. One of his phrases is: “Let’s do it and we’ll find it!” and invariably we do just that.

A key part of the rehearsal process at ENO is to take time to work with the English translation. You make a choice with something as iconic as this – do you go all Shakepeare on it, or do you try to find a slightly more modern vernacular? And whatever you decide, you have got to make the libretto still be poetry. That is very tough. We are using Tom Phillips’s version and started by working through every scene, making only minor changes just to maintain the beauty and integrity of how Verdi set Boito’s original libretto – sometimes there is such poetry in an Italian word that is totally lacking in its English equivalent. Meanwhile, I did start out by learning the role in Italian before swapping to English in the hope – vain or not – that I might get to do it again one day in the original language. We will see if that happens!

David’s production is set not in 16th-century Cyprus but in an indeterminate inter-war early 20th-century period. I am particularly pleased as I do not have to wear pantaloons. (Believe me this is good news for the audience as much as for me.) Also, with any 16th-century setting comes an expectation of the period’s gestures and manners. There are books and books written about the significance of holding one’s hand in a particular way, and the turning of one’s cuff. You can’t not take at least some of this on board if you have a historical setting.

We also wanted to avoid the cliche of grand, slightly swarthy hero. Our Otello is a much more turbulent, vulnerable Byronic figure. Luckily, we have today moved well beyond the concept of blacking up for the role – neither the play nor the opera could gain anything from that. But while theatre has a wealth of truly great actors who can play the role, the opera world still lags behind and does not yet have as many options. I look forward to the day it does, even if it means the likes of me will have one less role to sing.

Otello opens at English National Opera on 13 September. Box office: 020-7845 9300, eno.org

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