The Otello Tenor

I recently wrote that the title role in Verdi’s Otello was unique and so difficult to fully realize that it needed a tenor so gifted that the role might belong to a class of its own – The Otello Tenor. The role requires a tenor with the strength of an offensive tackle and the finesse of a fencer.

The opera begins with a terrifying entrance for the tenor. ‘Esultate’ is short, but is located in the tenor’s passagio, the most difficult part of his range, and has to compete with the full brass section at full emote.

Otello then has to stop a duel with commanding tones, followed by a lyrical love duet that lasts for more than 10 minutes. He sings an aria of outrage in Act 2; the act ends with a forceful duet. In Act 3, he literally loses his mind. At the opera’s end, he sings a mournful regret over the monstrous deed he has been duped into committing. In the middle of the dirge he stabs himself, dying at the music’s conclusion.

The role requires a singer of exceptional ability who has a clarion high B-flat (B4) and the sound of an heroic tenor mixed with that of a baritone. Fortunately for posterity, such a tenor was active in the middle of the last century, Mario Del Monaco. He has every vocal quality required for Verdi’s deluded Moor. He recorded the opera in the studio twice, and numerous recordings of him in the role were made during performances. There are some disputes as to the number of times he performed Otello; the number may be as high as 400. His identity with the role was so great that he was buried in his Otello costume.

I’ll present his performance of the key parts of Otello as the standard by which everyone else must be judged. I heard him do the role twice at the old Met. He was, both vocally and dramatically, the best Otello I have ever heard, either live or on recordings. I suspect his sound was similar to that of Francesco Tamagno, the great tenor who was the first Otello. He made a few recordings at the start of the 20th century when he was past his peak and suffering from the chronic heart disease that killed him a few years later. There’s no way to tell what he sounded like when he was at his best.

The performances that follow the Del Monaco selections are in no particular order. I picked them as they occurred to me.

Otello’s Esultate is from a 1958 Met performance. Del Monaco’s navigation through the passagio, which is where much of the role is placed, is perfect.

The extended duet that closes Act 1 is a sublime counterweight to the marital horror that follows. The kiss motive that appears near the end of the duet returns after Otello has realized his fatal error and is about to die from a self-inflicted wound. Renata Tebaldi is the soprano.

It doesn’t take much to make Otello suspicious of Desdemona’s fidelity. Just a hint sets him off -‘ Ora e per sempre addio sante memorie’ / ‘Now and forever farewell, holy memories’

‘Si pel ciel’ is the duet that closes Act 2. Otello is already out for blood – literally. Aldo Protti is the Iago.

Lauritz Melchior was the greatest heldentenor of the first half of the previous century. His many appearances at the Met were limited to Wagner.

He never gave a complete performance of Otello at the Met. He did appear once in the role, the last act only, in the farewell gala for Gatti-Casazza. His Italian colleagues had protested his appearance in the role, so Gatti could only schedule Melchior in the part as he (Gatti) was on the way out. Melchior did sing the role in Europe.

Lawrence Gilman in the New York Herald Tribune wrote: Mr. Melchior is a magnificent Otello. It is a pity that he has not sung the role before at the Metropolitan, for his performance last night brought down the house by its dignity, its passion, its restraint, its depth of feeling. Mr. Melchior as the tortured and terrible Moor captured the imagination from the moment when he loomed gigantically in Desdemona’s doorway to the moment when he was filling his dying utterances with a profundity of pathos that searched the heart and spirit. One will not soon forget his singing of the “E tu?come sei pal! E stanca, e muta, e bella?”

Here is Melchior’s reading of Esulate. New York missed a lot by never hearing Melchior perform the entire opera.

Francesco Merli was the leading dramatic tenor in Italy during the 1920s and 30s. He was particularly renowned for his portrayal of Otello. Below are his interpretations of ‘Esulatate’ and ‘Ora e per sempre’.

Leo Slezak sang for three seasons at the Met. The house could not afford two star tenors at the same time. He mostly sang roles that were not in Enrico Caruso’s repertoire. He sang Otello 31 times with the company, mostly under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. He received rave reviews. Slezak could sing just about anything from Mozart to Wagner to Verdi. His recording of Otello’s death scene is below

Jon Vickers was a Canadian tenor who was noted for both his portrayals of Verdi’s Otello and Britten’s Peter Grimes. Below are Esultate and Si pel ciel. Titto Gobbi is the baritone on the latter recording. The tenor was noted for his musicality and dramatic excellence.

Jonas Kaufmann added Otello in 2017 in London. He went on to perform the opera in Munich and Vienna. He was supposed to open the 2020-2021 season at La Scala in the opera, but the performance was cancelled due to the pandemic. Below are esultate, ‘Dio! mi potevi scagliar’, and the entire Act 3 finale,

Dio! mi potevi scagliar.

Placido Domingo sang Otello more than 200 times. It turned out to be among his most successful impersonations despite his voice being a little light for the role. Below are his versions of ‘Esultate’, followed by ‘Si pel ciel’ with Renato Bruson.

Aureliano Pertile was Toscanini’s favorite tenor when the Maestro was running La Scala in the 1920s. Below, he sings ‘Si pel ciel’ with baritone Benvenuto Franci.

Finally, Giuseppe Giacomini, who regularly sang Otello and made a studio recording of the opera. First, ‘Esultate’, followed by ‘Ora per sempre’, and then ‘Si pel ciel’ with Sherill Milnes.

That’s enough to allow valid comparisons. There are many other tenors I could have included had not sloth intruded. A few are listed below.

Bernardo Mauro
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
Max Lorenz
Giovanni Martinelli
Ramon Vinay
James McCracken