[Met Performance] CID:45240



Otello
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, November 26, 1909




Otello (26)
Giuseppe Verdi | Arrigo Boito
Otello
Leo Slezak

Desdemona
Frances Alda

Iago
Antonio Scotti

Emilia
Florence Wickham

Cassio
Angelo Badà

Lodovico
Herbert Witherspoon

Montàno
Vincenzo Reschiglian

Roderigo
Pietro Audisio

Herald
Bernard Bégué


Conductor
Arturo Toscanini







Review 1:

Review in The New York Times

"OTELLO' REPEATED AT METROPOLITAN

Leo Slezak, New Tenor, Greeted With Unusual Enthusiasm in Verdi's Opera

AN ARTIST OF RARE GIFTS

M. Scotti Fine as Iago - Mme. Alda's Desdemona Possesses Little Beyond the Qualities of Personal Charm

"Otello" was given for the second time last evening at the Metropolitan Opera House, with the same cast that was heard in it at the first performance last week, There are many interesting and striking features in this new production of Verdi's remarkable masterpiece; it is presented with fine skill and care in the stage management and in alt the features that go to make up a rich and

well-rounded ensemble, especially in the chorus and the orchestra, which played under Mr. Toscanini's direction with splendid sonority and beauty of tone and rhythmic energy,

The interest in the new Oteflo, Mr. Leo Slezak was uncommonly high; and he made it evident again, as he did on the evening of his first appearance, that he an artist of exceptional gifts and power not only in voice, but also in dramatic action. His voice has richness and the color to express depth and variety of emotion. It is powerful and sonorous; but Mr. Slezak is an artist, and uses his power and sonority for the attainment of dramatic effects, and not as ends sufficient in and for themselves. He commands large resources of histrionic expression, plastic and forcibly significant gesture, and especially noteworthy is his facial play-the mobility of mouth and the searching power of eye. His Otello is a robust impersonation, imposing with the overpowering weight of the personality it discloses, and filled with tragic power that is touched with tenderness and pathos. Mr. Slezak is, in fact, a remarkable addition to the forces of the Metropolitan Opera House. His performance last evening aroused an expression of enthusiasm on the part of the audience that is truly unusual.

Mr. Scotti's Iago is an extremely fine one; it is, indeed, one of the finest of his impersonations. It was regrettable that Mme. Alda's Desdemona possessed so little beyond the qualities of personal charm and graceful presence upon the stage. In quieter passages of the music she was not unpleasing in voice, but she could not meet any greater demands upon it without lapsing into stridency and shrill unsteadiness. Desdemona has heretofore been represented in New York chiefly by artists of the first rank; a pity that a step downward has to be made



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