Stars: Christian Franz, Emily Magee, Berlin State Opera Orchestra

Summary: Jurgen Flimm's staging of Verdi's Otello which is based on Shakespeare's tragedy Othello. Musical direction by Daniel Barenboim.

Verdi's OTELLO is performed in this release by the Berlin State Opera, under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. Jurgen Flimm provides the stage direction.

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One of the chief pleasures of this live production of Otellofrom the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden is Daniel Barenboim's conducting. From the opening gale-force blast of storm music, through the crunching and stabbing accompaniment of Iago's "Credo" to the shimmering strings of Desdemona's "Willow Song", he doesn't miss a trick. Everything works at the highest pitch of intensity and the orchestra sticks to his beat like glue. It's a necessary compensation for the shortcomings of the staging: the stolid chorus remains unperturbed by the storm and is directed to perform with unison movements; the acting (apart from Valeri Alexejev) is non-committal, and Alexandre Tarta's video direction somewhat flat-footed. She doesn't manage to make much small-screen sense of an impenetrably murky opening scene, for example, and doesn't seem fond of reaction shots. That said, Christian Franz and Emily Magee both have large-scale voices that they know how to shade into mo! ments of intimacy, and George Tsypin's sets are impressive: the murder of Desdemona is set against a brilliant lake of fire.

On the DVD:Otellois presented in 1.78:1 ratio with PCM Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound options. The picture quality is clear, although much of the lighting of this live production is low-level and thus many details do not come over well. Nor does the stage microphone system avoid some muffling of sound. There are subtitles in Italian, English, German, French and Spanish. --Warwick Thompson

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	Italian
Region:	Region 0
Subtitles:	English, French, German, Spanish
Year:	2001
Release Date:	December 2, 2002
Runtime:	157 minutes
Certification:	Exempt.
Catalogue Number:	100 346
Keywords:	Music, Berlin, Opera, Wide, Screen, Works, Otello, Stage, Verdi, Barenboim, Classical, Performing, Operetta, Arts, Staatsoper
Genre:	Music/Performing Arts