Otello Verdi
Calgary Opera

A general and his wife. His scheming friend. A whispered lie.

In Shakespeare’s most psychologically brutal tragedy, a single lie unravels everything, with music as devastating as the emotions it unleashes.

DIVE DEEPER

• Poison in the water: Shakespeare’s story of paranoia, jealousy, and ambition is brought to new heights in the hands of Verdi and Boito. The two would later collaborate on the operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Falstaff — Verdi’s only comedy.
• Otello starts in a violent storm scene — a musical masterpiece in itself — which drops listeners into the wild rage and irrational doubts in the mind of Otello himself.
• Is it ambition? Or is it jealousy? When Iago lays the groundwork to destroy Otello’s marriage and snatch his rank, it’s fascinating to consider why. Is he righting a wrong, removing a volatile man from leadership? Or, is he an insecure monster who can’t stomach others’ happiness?
• Desdemona, Otello’s wife, is a culmination of opera’s tension between tragedy and beauty. Her signature tune, known as the “Willow Song”, comes in Act IV, where she an extraordinary moment where she envisions her own death, and remembers the old song about a woman who loved a man who abandons her.