The title role of Verdi’s “Otello” is one of the hardest roles ever written for a tenor in the Italian repertoire. Luciano Pavarotti simply recorded it while Carlo Bergonzi (who was considered a Verdi expert) and Franco Corelli always refused to sing it. On the other hand, Plácido Domingo debuted the role when he was 34 years old, and though he was scarcely criticised for being too young and too lyrical, many critics did expect that this role would ruin his voice. Domingo went on to be one of the best Otellos of the past 40 years and sang more than 213 performances in the role.

Why is Otello so challenging? To begin with, it requires a dark, powerful, and dramatic voice to portray the brave warrior. Then there is the huge dramatic arc that travels from the ecstasy of a battle victory, through love, doubt, jealousy, and rage, to finally murdering his wife and committing suicide when he realizes he has been fooled. The tessitura goes from low b to high C, and the volume and power must be equal throughout the whole register. Some outbursts of fury must be sung F sharps or high Gs — notes that are in the passagio and that tenors usually cover, losing projection and power. But as it happens with Wagnerian repertoire, the voice cannot be muffled or weakened in any area of the tessitura. The role requires singing legato and mezza voce and the stamina to sustain both. Otello has an extremely high entrance, three arias, two duets, and multiple ensemble numbers in a four-act opera where the tenor is singing 80 percent of the night.

Michael Fabiano is one of the top tenors active today, his career spanning everything from lyric light roles like Alfredo, Rodolfo, Edgardo, Poliuto, and The Duke of Mantua to more dramatic roles like Cavaradossi, Calaf, Andrea Chénier, and Don José. Fabiano’s voice has always been voluminous, with exceptional projection and a dark timbre. As his repertoire has shifted, his volume has  increased, and his voice has naturally become darker, allowing him the ability to sound menacing, angry, and furious. Fabiano has been studying the role of Otello for 10 years. As he has expressed many times, “Otello was a role we couldn’t wait to sing.”  With all the preparation in place, Fabiano’s debut at Amigos Canarios de la Opera on the 24^th of March was truly momentous.

Fabiano entered the stage with determination and sang the challenging “Esultate!” with heroic power and brilliant high notes. The first four lines of “Otello” are extremely high, navigating constantly between G sharp and A natural with an appoggiatura rising up to B natural. The tenor held very secure throughout. His next intervention is when he interrupts the fight that occurs in the harbour, “Abasso le spade,” which is supposed to be a scream and which Verdi wrote by phrasing on F sharps and a G sharp. Fabiano succeeded in delivering a powerful, menacing line. In about six minutes of singing he had already shown how thunderous and heroic his voice was. But then came the duet with Desdemona, “Già della notte densa,” which demands a sonorous middle range plus the ability to sing sweet, dynamic mezza voce and legato. Fabiano effortlessly achieved all the demands, singing every dynamic written in the score with a delicate fraseo and even coloring his voice to become the ardent, recently-married lover.

The second act is the hardest in the opera. The tenor is onstage, singing non-stop, for about 40 minutes, and Verdi demands everything a human voice can do. Fabiano began his scene with Jago with depurated recitative parlatto lines, but Otello suffers his first fury outburst in “amore e gelosia vadan disperse insieme,” where Fabiano delivered a top ringing B natural, turning his voice aggressive and menacing. But in the subsequent quartet Verdi demands the tenor to sound sweet and weak, with several ascensions to B flats. Fabiano shown his bel canto and lyric background by lightening his voice and navigating easily through the three high B flats. But once the quartet ends and Desdemona and Emilia leave the stage, Otello confronts Jago very roughly, going back to a frightening, rotund sound. Fabiano switched easily, becoming a warrior beginning to doubt his wife’s fidelity. His first aria, “Ora e per sempre addio,” sounded martial and manic at the same time, with another voluminous top ringing high B flat on “è questo il fin.” He has a short break while Jago tells him about Cassio’s dream, before going back to the final scene which once more requires fury and a strong projection to carry over the orchestra, while singing constantly in the passagio and with multiple ascensions to strong A naturals. This ends in the duet “Si, pel ciel.” Fabiano showed all his potential and stagecraft. The voice was not always powerful, secure, and projected, but as Otello begins to break down, Fabiano prevented the infamous verismo mannerism in the line “Ah! Sangue! Sangue!” from being too emotional. He was believable but very subtle.

The third act is once again nonstop for the tenor. Here the tessitura becomes more central, and the challenge lies in playing with different colors of the voice and acting several different emotions that intertwine as Otello speaks to Desdemona. It is very easy to overact when Otello is trying to obtain information from Desdemona, but Fabiano avoided this. He transitioned back and forth from sweetness to anger, even insulting her while delivering an incredibly secure and maintained high C in “quella vil cortigiana.” His subsequent aria, “Dio, mi potevi” was, along with “Nium mi tema,” the highlight of his performance. He began singing mezza voce (“vocce soffocata” — “voice suffocated” — as written in the score) lying on the floor, face down, completely abandoned, broken, suffering, while singing every note Verdi wrote with emotion and avoiding the sadly verismo mannerism imposed by tradition. For a moment I felt I was listening to a Bellini melody. He crawls pathetically on the floor until he reaches his throne, delivering a beautiful mezza voce in “l’anima acqueto,” followed by a crescendo that rises up to a B flat. He crowns the aria with another top ringing B flat in “Oh gioia.” The terzeto with Jago and Cassio gives some vocal rest before the final ensemble scene. Here Otello tries to remain calm and authoritative while rebuking Desdemona, until he loses himself completely on “A terra! E piangi!” with hair-raising high Gs as he throws Desdemona to the floor in front of the entire court. Fabiano finished the act with a terrifying A sharp on “Ti maledico” before collapsing in a very convincing epileptic attack.

In the fourth and final act, Otello sings about 10 minutes and is written mostly in the middle register. It is vocally “easier,” although the real challenge is to reach the end with the voice still fresh. The difficulties are in the acting. Otello has to murder Desdemona, realize that he has been tricked and betrayed, and finally kill himself, dying next to his wife. Fabiano sang “Niun mi tema” with deep emotion, pathos, sorrow, and regret. He imprinted a different emotion on every line — it was really moving. He offered a final soaring mezza voce in “or morendo” and filled his lines with air and fatigue. His death was truly shocking, using the final bars of his last word, “bacio,” to show his agony before expiring.

Michael Fabiano was immensely successful in his debut of this iconic but difficult role because he has the vocal qualities, the technique, the stamina, and a deep study of the character, through which he is able to act with truth, emotion, and connection.

Jago, played by baritone Gabriele Viviani, was the incarnation of human evil. Jago is someone who causes pain for pure enjoyment. He does not gain anything but vengeance with the death of Desdemona, Otello, and Rodrigo. Verdi created a special musical language, a kind of recitative Parlato, that he demands mezza voce and an extremely high tessitura: a high A natural in the “brindis,” though Jago must constantly navigate between high F and G. Viviani was an incredible Jago, with a strong, metallic timbre, astonishing projection, and an effortless high register. His voice and his technique were so good that you forgot how difficult this part is and focused on his incredible performance, one full of contrasts and dynamics. His high A naturals in the “brindis” scene were loud, secure, and in perfect pitch (as this is a very extreme high note for a baritone, most singers just scream the note or skip it). His aria “Credo in un Dio crudel” had a marked intention in every line, presenting a vast palette of vocal colors. He was cynical, terrifying, strong, and evil. His voice blended perfectly with Fabiano in the final scene of Act Two, when they sing “Si, per ciel marmoreo giuro” together. He was truly convincing when he was developing his plan — it is very easy for baritones to overact, but here we got to see his malice and really believe him. However, he had to fight against the imposed staging and costuming, consisting of devil makeup only missing horns and a forked tail, in order to portray a twisted human soul, rather than the clichéd “devil character.”

Soprano Erika Grimaldi was a perfect Desdemona. She possess a truly lyrical instrument with a strong, sonorous middle register (where most of the role is written), a sweet, velvety timbre, and secure high notes. Grimaldi sang her first intervention with ardent passion, coloring her long melodies in a piece that keeps the voice of the soprano mostly inside the stave. She delivered a soaring pianissimo B natural at the end the “flower scene” in Act Two and maintained her voice during the quartet with exquisite ascensions to B flats, portraying the young, devoted lover. But in her confrontation at the beginning of Act Three she began to sound desperate, frightened, and lost, giving energy to the character as she defends herself from Otello’s accusations. She sounded naïve and sweet in “Tu di me fai gioco” when she believes Otello’s bad mood is a strategy to avoid talking about her request to reinstate Cassio as the army’s general. Her fraseo was beautiful in “E un di sul mio sorriso,” and her voice carried perfectly over the orchestra and soloists during the final concertante of Act Three, where she kept showing her bright, ringing top notes with several B flats and a B natural. The beginning of Act Four is Desdemona’s moment: here she has a 20 minute scene. The challenge is dramatic, as the writing is completely central, but she perfectly accomplishes what Verdi demands by coloring a melody that keeps on repeating and could easily turn boring. Grimaldi’s interpretation was very moving, emotional with pathos and desperation, especially in her forte A sharp  in “Ah Emilia!” She delivered another exquisite pianissimo in her “Ave Maria” in the final scene which rises to an A flat. Her ultimate scene with Otello was pure desperation and she was very convincing in her confrontation with him as she starts defending herself and ends up begging for her life. It is a pity that the staging resulted in a poorly convincing strangulation.

Tenor Bror Magnus Tødenes was a convincing Cassio with his bright and projected tenor voice.

The Orquesta filarmonica de Gran Canaria and the choruses Coro de la OFGC and Coro del festival de Opera were shining, powerful, and colorful. Conductor Carlo Montanaro’s work could be described in one word: passion. He managed to infuse Verdi’s music with energy, lively tempi, and strong emotions. He created moments of bombastic energy, like in the opening scene and the third act concertante. This was in contrast to the intimacy and sadness of the first bars of Otello’s aria “Dio! Mi potevi!” which turned out to be hair raising, or the lamenting of Desdemona’s scene in Act Four. What is more, and very few conductors can achieved this, Montanaro found a perfect balance between the sound of the voices and the orchestra, where every singer could be heard even when the orchestra was playing in forte.

This new production, directed by Carlo Antonio de Lucia, ultimately appeared weak and linear. I believe that this is due to the lack of a big budget, because it was clear in the way that sets and costumes were made that de Lucia was looking for a “big” production. In the confines of this production, however, it appeared unimaginative and unbelievable. The sets were arches and pillars, some of them painted in perspective on canvas panels while others were sculpted in relief. It is very difficult to mix relief sets with painted canvases and obtain positive results. The fountain and stone bench of Act Two looked very fake, appearing as two papier-mâché pieces on the brightly reflective black floor. The sets must be integrated and blend with each other, otherwise they seem like aleatory pieces thrown together. Otello’s throne looked like an unfinished piece of wood. If you do not have the resources to present a big production, that is when you must create a metaphor or a concept and develop the idea to make something, if not physically tangible, at least theatrically meaningful. The projections of the storm at the beginning of the opera were reflected on the chorus costumes when it was obvious that this projection was meant to be only used as the background. The staging was either old fashioned or non-existent. The chorus huddled together in the middle of the stage for “fuoco di giogia,” and around the soloists in a semi-circle for the ensemble parts, always entering the stage from the left and right. The battle between the extras in Act One looked very fake. The costumes of the soloists were beautiful period pieces, while several of the choristers’ costumes looked like they had been picked out of the wardrobe of different, already staged, productions of other operas.

Ultimately, Fabiano succeeded in his debut of the feared Otello role, accompanied by great singers in the form of Erika Grimaldi and Gabriele Viviani, in a poorly-conceived, old-fashioned production saved by the energetic outbursts of conductor Carlo Montanaro.