Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Music Review

Reining In a Restless Lion

Krassimira Stoyanova and José Cura in "Otello."Credit...Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Elijah Moshinsky’s striking 1994 production of Verdi’s “Otello” played at the Met last October with the tenor Johan Botha in the title role and Renée Fleming as Desdemona. Illness gave Mr. Botha a shaky opening night and forced him to miss most of the run, although he rallied for the final performance, a live HD broadcast.

On Monday night “Otello” returned to the Met with important new singers in all the leading roles. The burden was on the French conductor Alain Altinoglu to pull the performance together in the limited rehearsal time that is typically available in a repertory house like the Met when a production returns after several months.

Mr. Altinoglu was the hero of the evening, conducting a pulsing, compelling “Otello” that was understandably shaky now and then. His biggest challenge was trying to rein in the muscular-voiced and impulsive tenor José Cura, who was singing Otello, his signature role around the world, for the first time at the Met.

The baritone Thomas Hampson sang his first Iago at the house. At this stage of his distinguished career, the role, which he added in 2011, ideally suits him. This is Iago as a smooth operator, able to mask his evil intent through phrases delivered with oily elegance. Yet in a riveting “Credo,” Iago’s soliloquy about the meaninglessness of existence, Mr. Hampson plumbs every Shakespearean nuance of the words and music.

The Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova brings a rich, throbbing voice to her poignant portrayal of Desdemona. This is not a demure, pure-toned Desdemona, but an impassioned woman, baffled, hurt and finally terrified by her husband’s unhinged jealousy. In the last act, after a melting “Willow Song,” Ms. Stoyanova made Desdemona’s Ave Maria a desperate plea from one woman to another.

She, Mr. Hampson and especially Mr. Altinoglu deserve much credit for not letting Mr. Cura rattle them. In a note at his Web site, Mr. Hampson describes Mr. Cura’s Otello as “dynamic, unpredictable and exciting.” That’s one way to put it. This Otello is equal parts brute and dupe. Mr. Cura’s voice matches his brawny physique: when sheer, soaring power is called for, he has it for sure. In fits of anger, he sings with chilling, half-shouted intensity. And in the Act I love duet, he inflects ardent phrases with dusky vocal colorings and richness.

Still, for a singer who is also an experienced conductor, Mr. Cura is maddeningly willful in this performance. When so moved, he rushes ahead, alters rhythms and skirts pitches. Mr. Altinoglu had to summon all his skills as a traffic cop to keep the orchestra with this impetuous tenor.

I still much prefer this wild-man Otello to Mr. Botha’s vocally gratifying but wooden performance. But Mr. Cura’s bristling volatility would still come through if he were just a bit more accurate in his singing and attentive to his colleagues.

“Otello” runs through March 30 at the Metropolitan Opera; (212) 362-6000, metopera.org.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: Reining In a Restless Lion. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT