Sesto Quatrini and Nino Machaidze are set to perform two “Otello” operas at Oper Frankfurt.

Quatrini and Machaidze will first perform Rossini’s work from May 17 to June 15, 2024 and then will move straight into Verdi’s masterwork from June 22 to July 12, 2024. This marks Machaidze’s role debut as Desdemona in Verdi’s opera. She has previously sung Rossini’s opera to critical acclaim with critics stating she “was an outstanding Desdemona, showing radiant technique and clarity, sensitivity in vibrato and phrasing, along with sweetness and despair in her stage presence. Her rendering of the Willow Song was outstanding as was her intense prayer before Otello kills her.”

Regarding the two operas Quatrini said, “With great enthusiasm, I’m about to embark on a new musical journey that is fascinating and demanding at the same time: Rossini’s ‘Otello’ and Verdi’s ‘Otello’ at the Oper Frankfurt. I am grateful to this theatre for honoring me once again with an invitation to conduct as part of its season and, what’s more, in such a remarkable way, with two works of the same name, both nineteenth century masterpieces, yet musically, technically and theatrically very different. It will be enthralling to take on the challenge of two such disparate scores, with such diverse musical languages and approaches to vocality, and two very different librettos, partly because they originated from different literary sources (Othello, ou le More de Venise by Jean-François Ducis for Rossini, and Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name for Verdi). Basically, two operas which recount the same immortal, tragic events, but do so with different tempos, words, music, styles, theatrical and musical devices, methods, perspectives, even characters.”

Rossini’s opera will also star Theo Lebow, Francisco Brito, and Levy Sekgapane, while Verdi’s opera will also star Alfred Kim and Iain MacNeil.