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.
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.
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.
Plot
In Verdi's masterful adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, a great warrior discovers the one weapon against which he has no defense-his own jealousy. South African tenor Johan Botha, "endowed with a bright, ringing sound and enough power to project effortlessly even over a full-strength orchestra" (San Francisco Chronicle), sings the title role. Bulgarian soprano Zvetelina Vassileva in her portrayal of Desdemona, the faithful wife who finds facts are no match for manufactured suspicion, "sings with flawless, rich Italianate sound, and graceful phrasing" (San Francisco Classical Voice). Italian baritone Marco Vratogna gives "an arrestingly dark and charismatic" portrait of the villain Iago, with singing that's "beautifully controlled and dramatically on point" (San Francisco Chronicle). Music Director Nicola Luisotti "seems to have been born to conduct Otello. Through the storms, waves of sound, orchestra and chorus joining in raging passages, he maintains flawless momentum and exemplary balance" (San Francisco Examiner). "Red-Hot Otello!" -San Francisco Examiner
Keywords: based-on-play, cyprus, interracial-relationship, italian-opera, jealousy, killing, live-performance, moor, opera, seaport