Otello – 6 April @ 18:00 + 9, 11 & 13 @ 19:30 

Presented by Cape Town Opera in collaboration with West Australian Opera, Opera Queensland, New Zealand Opera, State Opera of South Australia and Victorian Opera

The greatest of all Italian tragic operas returns to Cape Town in a spectacular new international touring production to celebrate the Verdi bicentenary

“Beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green-eye’d monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on”

No writer inspired Verdi more than William Shakespeare – a fact his publisher cannily exploited when he tempted the reluctant composer out of retirement to write one final tragic opera. The result, completed when Verdi was seventy-three, stunned the world: a taut, thrilling adaptation of Othello which recast many of the composer’s musical trademarks in a work of startling power and originality.   

“Verdi’s score is so wonderfully lean and driven, viscerally bound to the hot-bed of the drama and then opening to exquisite moments of elegy,” says Simon Phillips, the acclaimed Australian director who leads this production’s international creative team. “As a theatre director, Shakespeare is my first love and I have had some of my most rewarding creative experiences working on his plays. But in the case of Otello, the opera surpasses its source.”

Created to celebrate the Verdi bicentenary in 2013, this visually spectacular production marks the beginning of a groundbreaking new partnership between six Southern Hemisphere opera companies, and will be staged in Australia and New Zealand in 2014 and 2015. Russian tenor Badri Maisuradze sings the formidable title role, with Ferrier Prize-winning South African soprano Sarah-Jane Brandon returning from London to make her role debut as Desdemona. George Stevens brings one of his signature roles, Jago, to Cape Town for the first time, while Brad Cohen leads the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra through Verdi’s astonishing score.

Conductor:            Brad Cohen
Director:               Simon Phillips
Set Design:           Dale Ferguson
Costume Design:   Michael Mitchell
Lighting Design:     Nick Schlieper
Orchestra:             Cape Philharmonic Orchestra
Assistant Director: Matthew Wild
Stage Manager:     Juanita van Wyk

 

Cape Town Opera Voice of the Nation Chorus
Chorus Master: Albert Horne

 

 

Cast List:

Otello,    a Moorish general: Badri Maisuradze/Mario Malagnini
Desdemona,  his wife: Sarah-Jane Brandon
Jago,   Otello's ensign: George Stevens
Emilia,  wife of Iago and maid of Desdemona: Violina Anguelov
Cassio,    Otello's captain: Derick Ellis
Roderigo,  a gentleman of Venice: Mthunzi Mbombela
Lodovico,  ambassador of the Venetian Republic: Xolela Sixaba
Montano,   former Governor of Cyprus: Thato Machona
Montano Understudy: Mandisinde Mbuyazwe
A Herald: (from VE)
Chorus:   Soldiers and Sailors, Townsfolk and Children.