Verdi's "Otello" is not an opera of diminishing audiences.  And yet,
tonight, in the War Memorial, groups of people left in each intermission,
even after the Giants game no longer offered an alternative.

Each?  Yes - three intermissions, two over half an hour in length, one
close to it.  Why?  Possibly to move around the large, heavy sets from
the Washington Opera.  Possibly (in an age of computerized backstage
mechanism) as the result of a miscalculation.  Anyway, it didn't help.

So why did people leave, why was the audience listless, applauding
politely, if at all?

"Otello," the work, is far more than the sum of its parts - it's an
intense, frightening rush headlong into a great tragedy.  "Otello," in
this production and at the first performance, is just parts and no sum,
certainly nothing more than that.  The performance lacked focus, cutting
edge, excitement.

Except for the first five minutes.  That was terrific, making the
frustration for the rest of the evening even worse, providing proof
of what might have been.

Donald Runnicles conducted a breathtaking, powerful storm scene, with
a rhythmic excitement witnessed only in great performances of the work.
Ian Robertson's Opera Chorus sounded as great as ever, a Bayreuth-massive
sound, the performance only slightly handicapped by Emilio Sagi's direction
of moving the singers as a rigid, packed, uniform crowd.

And then, quickly, the tension ebbed and problems started popping up all
around.  Sergei Leiferkus' Iago sounded weak, Jon Fredric West botched
one of opera's great entrances, the triumphant entrance of Otello.  He
ignored the conductor, went on his own way, and so the orchestra tutti
stepped on "Esultate!," instead of cradling and lifting that trumpet-like
high C.  Given the difficult voyage he just concluded, Otello may be
excused for having a case of sea-legs, but as West clambered down the
stairs, the hero's stance was somewhat compromised.

Both men were on and off all evening long, with fragmentary performances,
not presenting believable characters.  In Leiferkus' case, the problem
is with his "voice of many." Virtually from note to note, he went from
dry parlando (where there was music to sing) to moments of gorgeous
Russian bass to long passages of bland, uninteresting phrasing.  At the
end of the "Credo," Runnicles created an extra-long, wonderfully potent
silence after "E poi?" crying out for a powerful, resolute " La morte
e' il nulla," but Leiferkus threw it away, managed to make this, even
this, uninteresting.  There was an smattering of applause, damning with
very faint praise.

West's problems are not so much with the vocal production (uneven as it
is, ranging from sweet piano sounds to high notes of varying security)
as with his acting - or the lack of it.  It's uncertain if the director
or the singer decided that frequently rolling down on stairs, looking
like a sack of potatoes, would convey a sense of drama, but no matter -
it didn't.  This Otello pouted where Shakespeare's and Verdi's raged
uncontrollably.  West's Otello seemed to dislike Desdemona from the
get-go or, rather, expressing unwillingness to share the spotlight with
Patricia Racette, who sang the role.

Sing she did, with a brilliance and consistency that eluded the two male
principals.  Although there was more vibrato in her voice, especially
in Act 1, than usual, Racette did excellently well.  The Willow Song and
Ave Maria, however, turned into a concert aria (through no fault of hers)
because the scene in this case didn't provide a resting place between
two waves of red-hot passion.  It was just another scene, more quiet
than what came before and after, but not in contrast.

Catherine Cook is the fine Emilia, Eric Owens makes his San Francisco
debut as the Doge's envoy, Philip Skinner is Montano.  Raymond Very sang
a lackluster Cassio, Brian Anderson was a notable Roderigo.

Given the potential of Racette, Runnicles' orchestra and Robertson's
chorus, the basic competence of the whole cast, Zack Brown's fine sets
(with a memorable final scene), this production may yet catch fire.  It
didn't tonight.

Janos Gereben/SF
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