Attractive because repulsive - that’s one way to describe the contradictory fascination potential of William Shakespeare’s most enigmatic character, Othello. He probably could not have existed at the time of his creation: Black, a stranger, yet risen to the top of Venetian society through merit and spectacular eloquence, he marries the beautiful Desdemona.
But of course those around him are bothered by him, who they believe should be entitled to less. Othello’s closest confidant Iago instigates a jealous intrigue that leads to Othello killing first his bride and then himself. Arrigo Boito, the congenial librettist of Giuseppe Verdi’s late work, places Iago’s confession of cruelty at the center of the drama as an equal element to virtue. By drawing on Othello’s socially agreed otherness, Iago succeeds in bending the circumstances back in favor of a supposed order: one in which Othello is once again relegated to the bottom of the racialized hierarchy. As one of the most exciting opera works of the late 19th century, Verdi’s Otello also presents us with a problem: who should actually take responsibility for this white fantasy of blackness? Following her expansively sensual production of Juditha triumphans, director and set designer Silvia Costa focuses on the underlying constructions: who defines from where and in which language what is foreign and what is their own, who is worthy and who is rejected? Together with conductor Stefano Montanari, who returns to the Staatsoper Stuttgart after an exciting house debut with Iphigénie en Tauride and a brilliant Platée series, their examination of Shakespeare, Verdi and Boito promises to be an exciting journey through the different soul spaces of one of the most ambivalent figures in theater history.
