Sonya Yoncheva as Desdemona and Aleksandrs Antonenko in the title role of Verdi’s “Otello”. Photo: Ken Howard/ Metropolitan Opera
(l to r): Arrigo Boito, librettist, and Giuseppe Verdi in 1892
Otello is the penultimate creation of its composer, who needed prodding to begin the project. The great Giuseppe Verdi (October 10, 1813 – January 27, 1901) had gone into retirement after the success of his opera Aida, which premiered December 24, 1871. His publisher tried to persuade him for years to write another opera. Verdi finally agreed to Otello, based on the Shakespeare tragedy, and worked for the first time with librettist Arrigo Boito (with whom he’d collaborate on his next and final opera, Falstaff). They set Otello in the late 15th century on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, where an outpost of Venetian power is threatened by the Turkish Empire. This Great Performances at the Met production sets the power struggle in the late 19th century, the era of the opera’s premiere.
GP at the Met: Otello premieres February 21, 2016 at noon (12:30 pm for THIRTEEN audience in New York region; check local schedule).
To celebrate the 10th season of GP at the Met, Great Performances presents short highlights of what was happening in the world the year of each opera’s world premiere, and in the year of the Met Opera premiere. Otello had its original world premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy, in 1887; in the U.S., the Met Opera premiered the production in 1891 while on tour in Chicago.
1887: Otello’s World Premiere
Francesco Tamagno as Otello in a costume designed by Alfred Edel for the world premiere.
On January 26, Abyssinian Emperor John IV defeats the Italians in the Battle of Dogali, in present-day Eritrea.
On February 5, Italian tenor Francesco Tamagno stars as Otello in the world premiere of Verdi’s opera Otello at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. Baritone Victor Maurel plays the villain Iago and soprano Romilda Pantaleoni plays Desdemona. Tamagno would go on to perform the role 13 times during the Met Opera’s 1894–95 season.
Russian composer Alexander Borodin (b. 1833) dies on February 27. His epic opera Prince Igor, which he had labored over for 18 years, will be completed in 1888 by Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov.
On March 24, Oscar Straus begins his political career in the U.S. as the first Jewish man appointed a U.S. ambassador. He serves in Turkey (the Ottoman Empire).
On April 4, Susanna Medora Salter becomes mayor of Argonia, KS, and the first female elected official in the U.S.
On May 25, 200 people die at the Paris Opera after a gas lamp catches fire.
On December 1, the first Sherlock Holmes story by Conan Doyle appears in print: Study in Scarlet.
On December 10, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Great Britain sign the Balkan military treaty.
1891: Otello’s Met Opera Premiere
On January 1 in West-Sudan, 3,000 are killed when French troops occupy Nioro.
On January 29, Liliuokalani is proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch.
Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler premieres in Oslo, Norway on February 26.
Jean de Reszke played Otello in the Met Opera premiere
On April 1, the first telephone connection opens between London and Paris. The painter Paul Gauguin leaves France for Tahiti and The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, IL.
On April 23, Jews are expelled from Moscow, Russia.
The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is guest conductor at Music Hall (Carnegie Hall) on May 5.
Jules Massenet’s play Griselde (a future opera) premieres in Parison May 15.
The first public bathhouse with showers opens in New York City on August 17.
On August 24, Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
Stanford University opens in California on October 1.
In mid-October, the first international six-day bike race begins at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
On October 16, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the oldest in the United States, plays its first concert at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater.
On November 23, The Met Opera premieres Otello in Chicago, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the pit and Polish tenor Jean de Reszke starring as Otello, Canadian soprano Emma Albani as Desdemona, and baritone Eduardo Camera as Iago.
