Von Stade, Condò; Carreras, Pastine, Fisichella, Ramey; Ambrosian Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra, López-Cobos. Philips 6769-023 (3).

Otello, which came out in 1816-the same year as Il Barbiere di Siviglia--was one of the great successes of Rossini's career. By the time Verdi approached the same subject, seventy years had passed. There are correspondences between the two Otellos (more so than between Nicolai's Lustigen Weiber von Windsor and Verdi's Falstaff), but they belong to different eras.

Rossini's Otello is a string of duets and trios, a stand-up- and-sing opera of the old school, and the remarkable thing is the way the composer bent this format to convey spontaneous, uncontrollably building passion. Disconcerting for the modern listener is the use of seemingly cheerful ditties and the famous "Rossini crescendo" for serious rather than comic purposes. But what sounds funny in Il Barbiere can sound nervous and desperate in Otello, once one accepts the conventions.

The American Opera Society mounted Otello in concert form, followed by a production staged by the Rome Opera, in the 1960s. Philips' recording shows a stylistic advance over those ventures. The time has come when three tenors can be found, including an international matinee idol, capable of delivering coloratura in a more accurate than approximate manner, without cuts or simplifications such as those made in the Bonynge recording of Semiramide. The three are José Carreras (Otello), who even produces a low A with no more difficulty than some famous baritones have had with the note, plus Gianfranco Pastine (Iago) and Salvatore Fisichella (Rodrigo), different enough in sound to set the roles off clearly against each other. In the important bass role of Elmiro, Desdemona's father, Samuel Ramey shows a similar fluency and doesn't resort to chortling.

This Otello is not based on Shakespeare and follows a different story line: the Moor and Desdemona are not married, and Otello's chief motivation appears to be wounded pride. Desdemona is much more a romantic heroine than Verdi's, writhing in anguish from first to last as her father and suitors place conflicting demands on her. Mezzo Frederica von Stade brings out the pathos in the role if not the sheer éclat. An aria like "Che smania!" calls for more fire than she seems interested in conveying, but hers is a touching, finely shaded characterization, reaching its peak in a quietly inward willow song that departs little from Rossini's carefully annotated embellishments. Nucci Condò's earthy mezzo is a good foil as Emilia, the common-sense confidante who always gives the wrong advice.

Hats off to the piccolo player and first horn of the Philharmonia; hats on for the first clarinetist, whose watery tone is short of Rossinian ping. (Could he be the same player who sabotaged Levine's Forza recording?) Jesús López Cobos leads the uncut, mostly unchanged score in a performance generally livelier than his Lucia di Lammermoor, and he pulls only one stylistic boner: changing the crescendo of the final Otello--Desdemona scene so it won't be the same as that of Don Basilio's calumny aria in Il Barbiere. This is like rewriting Violetta's "Povera donna!" because Verdi made fun of it in Falstaff: it deprives us of a composer's witty perspective on himself.

Copyright © 1980 The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Inc.