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Otello is a 1986 film based on the Giuseppe Verdi opera of the same name based on the Shakespeare play Othello. The film was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starred Plácido Domingo in the title role, Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona and Justino Díaz as Iago. The Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala were conducted by Lorin Maazel.

The film premiered in West Germany on August 28, 1986, and received a U.S. theatrical release on September 12, 1986.

Plot[link]

With only a few exceptions, the film follows the same plot as the opera. Iago plots and brings about Otello's downfall by convincing him that his wife Desdemona is engaged in an affair with the young lieutenant Cassio, provoking Otello to murder her in a blind rage.

However, a major change is that Otello kills Iago at the end by throwing a spear at him, while in the stage version of the opera, he only wounds him with his sword.

Cast[link]

• Plácido Domingo - Otello
• Katia Ricciarelli - Desdemona
• Justino Díaz - Iago
• Petra Malakova - Emilia
• Urbano Barberini - Cassio
• Massimo Foschi - Lodovico
• Edwin Francis - Montano
• Sergio Nicolai - Roderigo
• Remo Remotti - Brabantio
• Antonio Pierfederici - Doge

Music[link]

For the most part, the film follows the original score of the opera with several noticeable exceptions. The entire Willow Song (Salce, salce), Desdemona's only solo aria in the entire opera, and largely considered one of the most beautiful moments in the work, is omitted, although her Ave Maria, which follows immediately, is retained in the film. There are, at various points, small cuts in the music (such as the moment at the end of the storm scene in which the chorus is cut short and the film skips to the recitativo between Iago and Roderigo. This is in stark contrast to stage productions of Otello, where the opera is never cut. There are also two additions: the extra music from the rarely performed third act ballet (written for the opera's Paris premiere) is inserted into the festivities of the first and third acts in the opera in the film.

In the film, when Iago is informing Otello about Cassio's supposed dream in which he apparently said to Desdemona "Let us hide our loves", we see Cassio singing the words, not Iago, as in the original stage version; therefore, Zeffirelli is showing the audience a scene which actually never took place, since the dream is a complete fabrication of Iago's. The scene is never presented this way when the opera is performed onstage.

Another of Zeffirelli's decisions was to show, complete with screams and sound effects, a flashback of marauding soldiers attacking an African village and snatching Otello (as a baby) from his mother, while the adult Otello and Desdemona sing their Act I love duet.

Despite the fact that Leonard Maltin, in his Movie and Video guide, called the film "nearly flawless", others did not agree. Zeffirelli was soundly criticized by Vincent Canby in the New York Times for some of these alterations. [1]

However, on the soundtrack album of the opera, released by EMI, the music is presented with no cuts or additions, exactly as it always is whenever Otello is performed on the stage, and the "dream" sequence is heard exactly as Verdi and Boito wrote it, not as is seen in the film. But the soundtrack album has not proved to be nearly as popular as Plácido Domingo's first recording of the opera, released in 1978 by RCA Victor.

Reception[link]

The film was nominated for a Bafta Award for the Best Foreign Language Film in 1987, but the award was won by Akira Kurosawa's Ran. In the same category, it was also nominated for a Golden Globe. The film was also entered into the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

See also[link]

• Shakespeare on screen

References[link]

External links[link]

• Otello at the Internet Movie Database

v t e William Shakespeare's Othello Characters Othello Desdemona Iago Emilia Cassio Bianca Roderigo Brabantio Other characters Source "Un Capitano Moro" from Gli Hecatommithi (1565) by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Opera and ballet adaptations Otello (1816, opera) Otello (1887, opera) The Moor's Pavane (1949, ballet) Bandanna (1999, opera) Screen adaptations Othello (1952) Othello (1955) All Night Long (1962) Othello (1965) Catch My Soul (1974) Otello (1986) Othello (1995) Kaliyattam (1997) O (2001) Othello (2001) Eloise (2002) Omkara (2006) Jarum Halus (2008) Stage adaptations Catch My Soul (US) (1969) Catch My Soul (UK) (1970)