Otello is a brilliant work by an early Italian opera from 1816, based on a French adaptation of Shakespeare's drama of the same name. Since the composer Gioacchino Rossini and the librettist Francesco Beria di Salsa have never seen the original English drama, the story of the work unfolds differently than the Elizabethan playwright actually wrote it. We move from Cyprus to Venice, several characters have a changed character and a stand in the story, which is quite schematic: two tenors compete for the hand of a prima donna. Otello was initially not positively received in the English-speaking world in particular - the English poet Lord Byron even wrote in 1818: They persecuted Otello until the opera and crucified him. The score is a real lottery bet - get six tenors, soprano, mezzo-soprano and bass. Despite such critical remarks , Otello achieved fame, even world fame. Verdi himself approached this work with great respect a few decades later when composing his own Otell (premiere in 1887), because he realized that his work would be critically compared to Rossini. The fact that Verdi's Otello eventually passed the sieve of time more successfully does not change the fact that Rossini's Otello represents a major milestone in the development of 19th century musical drama. It is also one of the key works, thanks to which the so-called Rossini Renaissance, ie the rediscovery of unknown works by this great composer. In fact, it persists to this day, and the State Opera joins it by staging this magnificent work of world opera literature.
The production of the State Opera from 2019 is the first in Slovakia. The work was presented as the title of the exclusive singing qualities of its performers, which was also highly praised by professional critics. Chinese tenor Zi-Zhao Guo and young Slovak soprano Mariana Sajko perform their life performances in extremely demanding vocal parts. The work was musically staged and conducted by Marián Vach, directed by Andrea Hlinková, costumes by Boris Haneček and stage by Miriam Struhárová.
