Review of Otello

The story is simple, Shakespearean to the absolute extreme you can imagine. The peace and happiness of Venice is disturbed by the simple fact that a Moor, Othello, is welcomed as a hero after a battle he won in Cyprus. He is married to the daughter of a high ranking family, Desdemona, who is carrying in her own name the fact that she has a very doomed, demonized lot due to this very disruptive situation and love. This creates a rivalry, antagonism with the captain of the fleet, Cassio, and the extreme envy if not hatred from Iago is enough to turn a disruption, a breach of balance into a major catastrophe. A handkerchief and its supposed or alleged circulation will sign the end of Desdemona strangled by Othello, a strangulation that is very strange in this film since she will survive it long enough to expose her murderer and then die peacefully. Iago is then exposed in his treachery, killed by Othello with a spear instead of being tortured to death, and Othello finally kills himself with a dagger and still no blood at all. And balance is found again after the drama, the balance of sorrow, mourning and justice in a way. The play by Shakespeare and this opera reveals a deep racist inspiration. Othello is bringing this drama to Venice because he is a Moor, an Infidel, a Blackman, etc…That theme exists in other plays like "Titus Andronicus" or "The Merchant of Venice", with an anti-Semite dimension in these latter cases. The common theme is the hatred from a mediocre person who is trying to get even with better people than him by destroying them through some kind of plotting. But this plotting leads to the ultimate ruin of the plotter. We have to look over this dimension, common in Shakespeare's time, and see the more universal dimension. The man who is successful will inspire jealousy, envy and even greedy hostility. In this case, the object of that envy is Othello's wife and the game is to make the successful warrior kill his love, which he does out of some jealous lust, some possessive desire. The subsequent drama and the repentance of Othello shows how things are changing in these renaissance years, how women are little by little capturing some individual existence of their own, on the way to freedom, even if it ends up in death altogether. In fact Shakespeare in his English society is more advanced than Verdi in his 19th century Italy. Shakespeare doubles the point by making Desdemona's maid the final and lethal accuser of Iago and his lying and conspiring. We have to think of Romeo and Juliet but this latter case is pure love, no conspiration, jealousy or whatever, though the end is the same apart from the poison. A double death in the name of love. Zeffirelli does a pretty good job by creating a rich environment, at times maybe too rich. A slightly leaner production would have probably emphasized the beauty of the music and the singing. Othello as well as Desdemona reach the depth and density the tragedy requires. The cluttered setting de-concentrates our attention, even maybe our interest. The singing and the music require a stylized setting for our eyes not to get lost in the jungle of the visuals, short-circuiting our ears in their enjoyment of their listening.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines