Verdi Otello - favourite recordings?

[Andy Evans]

In the UK here BBC Building a Library has just reviewed different
versions of Otello - should be online for a few weeks:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio3/bal/bal_20120211-1015a.mp3

Since this is just one guy's opinions, I'd be interested (as a
newcomer to this work) to know which recordings those of you familiar
with the opera would rate as favourites.

Andy Evans

[wagnerfan]

The Toscanin has to be included due to the incredible orchestral
conception and execution - if ever an orchestra where the extension of
a conductors will it is here in this recording. The cast is a strong
one - Vinay did not have the most beautiful voice in the world but he
inhabits the role as few others; Nelli gives her not insignificnat
best- its still not quite enough but doesn't let down the entire
recording. Valdengo also gives his best -snarling evil. Much more than
the sum of the parts - you can get the edited version from RCA but the
actual broadcast with narrations is available from a couple sources
Naxos and Guild.
For stereo I go back to the Karajan Decca - the orchestral sound is
amazing and the Vienna Phil is superb. Del Monaco was THE Otello of
the fifties and early sixties and his voice was still in great shape
Tebaldi was the best Desdemona I have ever heard and she is wonderful
here. Aldo Protti was a late substition for Bastianini who apparently
wasn't the sharperst tack in the box since he didn't know the plot -
he sings it fine but the evil is just suggested. The latest CD version
includes the ballet music in the third Act which was in the original
LP issue - nice to hear but couldn't come at worse time dramatically.
I would avoid the Serafin on RCA - the conducting is surprisingly
heavy and undramatic, Vickers is in good voice but got better later,
Rysanek is miscast (I think she was a late substitution) and even
Gobbi seems inhibited by the whole thing.
The Levine on RCA is also a good choice - a reference set with a
wonderful Desdemona from Scotto and very good work from Domingo and
Milnes.

Wagner Fan

[Tassilo]

On Feb 12, 12:22 pm, Andy Evans <performanceandme...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd be interested (as a
> newcomer to this work) to know which recordings those of you familiar
> with the opera would rate as favourites.

> Andy Evans

I’ve heard my fair share of Otello recordings, including live or
studio recordings with Martinelli, Vinay, Del Monaco, Vickers,
Domingo, and Windgassen, including live or studio recordings with
Ettore Panizza, Toscanini, Furtwängler, Busch, Erede, Fausto Cleva,
Serafin, Karajan, Solti, Levine, Carlos Kleiber, Maazel, Muti, and
Chung, and the best CONDUCTED Otello I’ve ever heard is this one:

Giuseppe Verdi: Otello
Desdemona: Cesy Broggini
Otello: Carlos Guichandut
Cassio: Angelo Mercuriali
Iago: Giuseppe Taddei
Orchesttra della RAI di Torinp
Franco Capuana
Torino, 8 June 1955

This performance of Otello is an article of faith with me, a document
of everything I love about the best Italian performances of Italian
opera from before the bad old days when Abbado, Muti, and Levine came
along to whip the money lenders out of the temple.

Thanks to Capuana, I actually prefer this performance to the NBC SO
broadcast with Toscanini, good as it is. It’s brisk and strict in the
best Italian tradition—Capuana preserves the tempo of “Fuoco di gioia”
across Iago’s declamatory “Roderigo beviam” and into the pizzicato
motive in the violas that follows better than any conductor I’ve ever
heard: under Capuana, the new motive and the development it launches
lock into the larger structure of the overall continuum with a special
rightness—but it’s strict without being rigid. And Toscanini’s
performance does seem ever so slightly rigid by comparison.
Furthermore, Capuana’s performance exhibits other kinds of virtues
more amply than Toscanini’s.

In phrasing, Capuana is able to rely on an extraordinary range of
manners of articulation, and Verdi’s textures bloom under his
direction. Capuana elicits particularly brilliant work from his
string players, and there is no species of legato, spiccato, or
staccato articulation that doesn’t find its proper place somewhere in
this performance. There are so many wonderful examples that none
sticks out as exceptional, the opening temporale, for example,
including a whole inventory of them.

Here are a few examples of passages that Capuana’s players do to
perfection: the fortissimo run up the scale by the strings that
punctuates Otello’s “Abasso le spade,” which Verdi has marked both
staccato and sostenuto, and all of the punctuating interjections by
the strings in the passage that follows; the passage a dozen bars into
Act II where Verdi imitates the motivic development characteristic of
a Beethoven quartet, harnessing the distinction between legato and
staccato in articulation of his motives; and the sinister dry staccato
sixteenths at the beginning of Act III. On a larger scale, there’s
Capuana’s projection of the violin line shortly thereafter, at first
legato and crescendo (Act III from m. 13), then staccato and crescendo
(from m. 21), then fortissimo and legato (from m. 24), and, finally—at
twice the speed—fortissimo and staccato (from m. 26). The shaping of
the whole is beautifully done, Capuana’s subtle adjustments of tempo,
his projection of the dynamics, and the manner in which the string
players vary their articulations all playing a crucial part
—“instinctively” and without the least trace of self-consciousness.

Needless to say, the actual living breathing performance tradition
that Capuana and his players embody deserves more of the credit for
all of this than Capuana or any of his individual players. Capuana
can only succeed because he and his players are all on the same page,
and the successes they achieve together are not so much original with
them as original with the tradition. Capuana’s orchestra was never as
virtuosic an ensemble as the greatest orchestras of the period, and
there are a few instances of imperfect ensemble or poor intonation in
this performance, but the Orchestra della RAI di Torino was the best
of the Italian radio orchestras of the period, and its membership
imbibed Verdi’s style with mother’s milk. You simply will not find
the same variety in articulation or the vitality that results from
such an alert response to the writing in such smoothly polished studio
efforts as Karajan’s, Levine’s, or Chung’s.

Caveat lector. The voices of the Desdemona and the Otello are more
apt to deter some listeners than they do me. Guichandut can be
particularly hard to take. His voice is of approximately the right
size and weight for Otello, but his production is awkward, his actual
sound coarse, and he has an odd fast-ish vibrato (which is better than
an odd slow-ish vibrato). His technique is so poor that he more or
less has to force to get the sound out throughout much of his range.
That being said, he’s not entirely insensitive and more musicianly
than certain more famous Otello’s, including Signor Del Monaco: time
and again I’m gratified when following the score to see him projecting
Verdi’s notated pitches and rhythms rather faithfully, although his
intentions are often undermined by his poor technique. Guichandut is
also prone to the occasional excessive provincialism for expressive
effect, an occupational hazard of the Italian tenor, but—if he had the
greatest voice in the world—people would be wildly ecstatic about his
performance, and rightly so.

Cesy Broggini has the odd brittle timbre characteristic of so many of
those mid-century Italian sopranos whom nobody would ever have heard
of outside of Italy if it weren’t for Cetra, but she’s a not
unaffecting Desdemona. It goes without saying that Taddei is a superb
Iago. Angelo Mercuriali is a wonderful Cassio.

Although listenable, the sound is not great, even for 1955. Making
matters worse, some of the CD reissues have been heavily over
filtered. Pick up either of these releases on Warner Fonit, which
feature the same rather good remasterings:

Warner Fonit 8573 82653-2
http://tinyurl.com/3dgpq4

Warner Fonit 5051011-2205-2-4
http://tinyurl.com/2wvwmw

-david gable

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 10:12 am, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:22:25 -0800 (PST), Andy Evans
>

I'd second your basic recommendations, though I cannot recommend any
recording of Domingo as Otello. He's just not an Otello in my books
(didn't seem to hurt his bookings, though). He simply lacks the vocal
power this role demands, and I say that as someone who heard him - and
couldn't hear him much of the time - sing the role at The Met.

I would have liked to have heard Domingo as Cassio.

I have a soft spot for Solti's first Decca Otello with Margaret Price,
Carlo Cossutta and Bacquier, chiefly for the excellent conducting and
the fact that Cossutta is a much better Otello than anyone could have
imagined. The VPO ain't bad, either, and there's some luxury casting
with Peter Dvorsky as Cassio and Jane Berbie as Emilia. I see Decca is
re-releasing this title on CD this month.

There's also that Martinelli/Met performance on Pearl that's worth
investigating once one has learned the opera and is ready for
something beyond a basic recommendation.

Also, I think the Del Monaco/Karajan/Decca recording has been
reassigned to the DG catalog. I happen to like the earlier Decca
Otello with Del Monaco/Erede a bit more than the Karajan.

I would caution any newbie to this opera staring off their association
with any of the older, non-stereo recordings, no matter how intense
the advocacy for the same. You'll get to those eventually, but do
yourself a favor and - short of first encountering it in the opera
house - get a recording that does overall justice to the score, in
both performance and sound quality.

[wkasimer]

On Feb 12, 2:56 pm, Mark S <markstenr...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'd second your basic recommendations, though I cannot recommend any
> recording of Domingo as Otello. He's just not an Otello in my books
> (didn't seem to hurt his bookings, though). He simply lacks the vocal
> power this role demands, and I say that as someone who heard him - and
> couldn't hear him much of the time - sing the role at The Met.

Mark, while I am certainly not a fan of Domingo, and can't argue with
you about his Otello in the flesh (which I never heard), the lack of
vocal power is largely irrelevant on records. I don't think much of
him on the Maazel or Levine recordings (and the Levine is ruled out,
for me, by Milnes' Iago, which is little more than Snidely Whiplash
set to Verdi's music), but much to my surprise, I've always liked the
last one on DG, conducted by Chung, with Studer and Leiferkus.

My real favorite, though, is the Panizza.

BTW, what's the best transfer of the Toscanini? I have the Naxos,
which is fine, but has anyone heard the Opus Kura?

Bill

[wagnerfan]

Is the Opus Kura a transfer of the RCA set?? (which the Naxos and
Guild are not) Wagner fan

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 12:25 pm, wkasimer <wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2:56 pm, Mark S <markstenr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd second your basic recommendations, though I cannot recommend any
> > recording of Domingo as Otello. He's just not an Otello in my books
> > (didn't seem to hurt his bookings, though). He simply lacks the vocal
> > power this role demands, and I say that as someone who heard him - and
> > couldn't hear him much of the time - sing the role at The Met.
>
> Mark, while I am certainly not a fan of Domingo, and can't argue with
> you about his Otello in the flesh (which I never heard), the lack of
> vocal power is largely irrelevant on records.

Actually, it's very relative on record, at least if one hopes that a
record reflects the in-the-theater experience. That includes having
singers whose voices fairly represent the kind of singer who could
actually sing the role in the house. That goes to how the singer
projects their voice, where they choose to score their points in terms
of dynamic shading and painting the text. One of my big problems with
baritones singing Schubert lieder in lower keys than written is that
it changes their characterization of the song. Notes and phrases that
were written to have tension and energy are stood on their head as the
baritone croons the phrase and delivers a reading of the text that is
at odds with the composer's intention.

I find these problems in Domingo's Otello, where the strength and
brass of the normal Otello voice is missing, replaced by a soft-edged
vocal delivery that adds an aspect to the character of Otello that I
find entirely unconvincing.

[wagnerfan]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:28:40 -0500, wagnerfan <ivanm...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Ok I see from the cover that the source is HMV LPs (?) Opus Kura
does really good work and I see HB direct has it for 16.00 plus
change.
Wagner fan

[Randy Lane]

On Feb 12, 12:40 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:28:40 -0500, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com>

> Wagner fan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Vickers is still the most convincing and thrilling Otello I've ever
heard, and with Rysanek and Gobbi as Desdemona and Iago, this
recordings still gets my nod:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000B9KO

[wagnerfan]

Not for me I'm afraid - considering all the talent involved I think
its an awful disappointment. I don't know what Serafin was tring to to
- maybe get some kind of monumental aspect to the score but it just
grinds on SLOOWWLY so I miss much of the drama - it just sits there.
There is no bigger fan of Rysanek thanIi am but too much of the role
lies in the lower middle which was always a problem for her and there
are too few instances when she can let her voice out. The best thing
about the recording IMO was the SORIA presentation. Wagner fan

[Mark S]

Vickers was indeed a thrilling Otello in the house, and his recordings
pretty well represent what he did with the role.

That said, it was my experience that one needed only see Vickers'
Otello once, because he almost never varied his approach to the role.
That was as true of his vocalizing of the role as it was of the
gestures he made on stage. If you watch the DG video of his Otello
(with Freni/Karajan) you are seeing exactly what Vickers did every
time he performed the role. His performances of Otello became - to me
- like a museum piece that never changes beyond whatever effect the
lighting does to bring out one aspect a bit more than the other. I say
this having seen him in the role at The Met on at least 5 different
occasions.

As far as the two commercial recordings Vickers made of the piece, he
was extremely displeased with the RCA effort, especially as he and
Gobbi ended up doing something like 14 full-voiced takes of the "Si,
pel ciel" duet because the orchestra kept flubbing up the works.
Vickers went on at some length about how that duet in particular as it
appears on the record features two exhausted singers being accompanied
by an orchestra that finally got every note in place.

While I prefer Vickers voice in his early years - like his Don Carlo
from Covent Garden - I think that overall, his later, Karajan-led
Otello offers the best representation of what Vickers could do with
this role, even with the crack on the "Exsultate" and an inordinate
amount of crooning elsewhere.

[Andy Evans]

I've been going through some of the versions of Mia Madre and Ave
Maria on Spotify, and the Desdemonas that I liked are the following:

Dragica Martinis w. Furtwangler – superb, loved this singer
Cheryl Studer – w. Chung – very good
Renata Scotto – w. Levine - very good
Mirella Freni w. Carlos Kleiber – very good
Mirella Freni w. Karajan – very good
Anne Schwanewilms w Colin Davis – good
Gabriella Tucci w. Monaco,Gobbi – good

In some cases I liked the voice itself - Anne Schwanewilms is fairly
anonymous but I do like her voice

I also liked these singers in excerpts:
Eide Norena - loved this voice
Regine Crespin - very good
Anna Netrebko – very good
Elisabeth Rethberg – very good

I'm not by any means familiar with operatic singers, so I'm sure many
will disagree with the above!

I initially found the following singers less to my personal conception
- again, some like Tebaldi are very fine singers. I think I'm
preferring a "fresher" kind of voice right now at a first listen
rather than a fuller or more dramatic/declamatory voice. This may
change with more familiarity, since I'm just getting to know this
opera.

Renata Tebaldi
Rysenek
Leontyne Price
Hilde Konetzni
Nicola Fusati
Katia Ricciarelli
Licia Albanese
Callas
Caballe
Fleming
Ponselle
Margaret Price
Maria Caniglia
Marfalda Favero
Kiri Te Kanawa
Stella Roman

[Andy Evans]

Can anyone direct me to the best label to get the Furtwangler on? I
have so far seen EMI, Opera D’Oro, Archipel, Metromusica Milano,
Arkadia and I think there may be more...

Andy

[wagnerfan]

I would get the EMI which uses the original Salzburg tapes. Wagner
fan

[Andy Evans]

On Feb 12, 9:50 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:42:28 -0800 (PST), Andy Evans
>

> <performanceandme...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Can anyone direct me to the best label to get the Furtwangler on? I
> >have so far seen EMI, Opera D’Oro, Archipel, Metromusica Milano,
> >Arkadia and I think there may be more...
>
> >Andy
>
>  I would get the EMI which uses the original Salzburg tapes. Wagner
> fan

Thanks for that - I read somewhere that the original tapes were lost
and the recordings were pieced together from radio tapes - any truth
in that?

[wagnerfan]

Yep you are right - the booklet with the EMI set explains that the
original tapes are lost and the transfer has been made from a
combination of the best possible sources . Wagner fan

[Terry Simmons]

In article
<70c8e79b-f540-49a3...@k40g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
Mark S <markst...@yahoo.com> wrote:


<snip>

>
> I have a soft spot for Solti's first Decca Otello with Margaret Price,
> Carlo Cossutta and Bacquier, chiefly for the excellent conducting and
> the fact that Cossutta is a much better Otello than anyone could have
> imagined. The VPO ain't bad, either, and there's some luxury casting
> with Peter Dvorsky as Cassio and Jane Berbie as Emilia. I see Decca is
> re-releasing this title on CD this month.

<snip>

> I would caution any newbie to this opera staring off their association
> with any of the older, non-stereo recordings, no matter how intense
> the advocacy for the same. You'll get to those eventually, but do
> yourself a favor and - short of first encountering it in the opera
> house - get a recording that does overall justice to the score, in
> both performance and sound quality.

I second both recommendations. The Solti is amazingly good. And recorded
quality DOES count!

[Terry Simmons]

In article
<68a670bc-38c1-48c3...@f30g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>,

But aren't you looking for recordings of the complete opera?

[Andy Evans]

> I cannot recommend any
> recording of Domingo as Otello. He's just not an Otello in my books
> (didn't seem to hurt his bookings, though). He simply lacks the vocal
> power this role demands, and I say that as someone who heard him - and
> couldn't hear him much of the time - sing the role at The Met.

I'm having the same problems with Domingo - much prefer Vickers or
Vinay or Martinelli in the excerpts I've heard so far

[Andy Evans]

> > I also liked these singers in excerpts:
> > Eide Norena - loved this voice
> > Regine Crespin - very good
> > Anna Netrebko ­ very good
> > Elisabeth Rethberg ­ very good
>

>

> But aren't you looking for recordings of the complete opera?

Yes indeed. I've been listening to various recordings on Spotify all
evening. The Toscanini is wonderful. Not sure which is the recommended
version of this for best sound. Also like Vinay in the Furtwangler,
though Martinis isn't as uniformly good as I thought from her Ave
Maria.

I like the Karajan recording with Vickers and Freni. I'll have to
listen to more Vickers.

Shame about the sound of the Panizza - Martinelli is wonderful

[wagnerfan]

Note the Vickers Freni under Karajan has two inexcusable cuts,
Its also interesting to note that in the great Act Three ensemble -
in the Toscanini you hear every thread and this is in a 1947
broadcast. Goes to show that all those months of rehearsals really
paid off.
I know I should like Martinelil more than I do and I admire his
dramatic intensity but he was an old man as tenors go by the time he
took up Otello and that squeezed vocal production had taken over the
entire voice, Its all so squeezed out like from a tube of toothpaste
that its hard for me to enjoy the vocalism per se - that said he
really is intense and with Tibbett in his best form they are quite a
pair.

Note that there are two different versions of the Toscanini Otello -
spotify probably has the offcial RCA release, There were a number of
mishaps during the broadcast which were later corrected and edited in
for the offcial release. Naxos has the actual broadcast with
commentary and is superbly transferred by Ward Marston, Guild has
their own excellent 2003 restoration and has a great bonus in a third
CD which has over an hour of the rehearsals for Act Three Wagner fan

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 5:30 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>  Note the Vickers Freni under Karajan has two inexcusable cuts,

The cut in Act 2 of the little madrigal/mandolin chorus is entirely
excusable.

Where's the other cut? I forget.

[wkasimer]

On Feb 12, 5:04 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:

Re Furtwangler:

>   Yep you are right - the booklet with the EMI set explains that the
> original tapes are lost and the transfer has been made from a
> combination of the best possible sources .

And those sources are none too good. A very disappointing recordings,
and not just because of the sound. Schoeffler is awful, Martinis no
better than adequate, and Vinay is heard to better effect with
Toscanini.

Bill

[wagnerfan]

The other cut that you forgot is right in the middle of the Act Three
ensemble - not only indefensible on musical grounds but on dramatic
ones as well - we lose two important exchanges Iago has with two other
characters and it plays havoc with the musical structure.
My question is WHY?? to both, 'The first excision (the second and
third strains of the choral episode in Act II), means that Karajan has
to recompose Verdi's little modulation so that from E major it will
now lead to to G sharp minor instead of to A major. The time saved by
this awkward rewrite job is trivial - the purpose perhaps you can
explain to me since you find it excusable.
The other excision is so ridiculous I won't go into it on both musical
and dramtic grounds unless you insist - I would think you would
understand without me having to go into it. Point - be very careful
when cutting a masterpiece. Wagner fan

[jrsnfld]

On Feb 12, 12:25 pm, wkasimer <wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:

> Mark, while I am certainly not a fan of Domingo, and can't argue with
> you about his Otello in the flesh (which I never heard), the lack of
> vocal power is largely irrelevant on records.  I don't think much of
> him on the Maazel or Levine recordings (and the Levine is ruled out,
> for me, by Milnes' Iago, which is little more than Snidely Whiplash
> set to Verdi's music), but much to my surprise, I've always liked the
> last one on DG, conducted by Chung, with Studer and Leiferkus.

The DG recording has outstanding sound and Chung and his orchestra are
divine. It's a fine first version of the opera.

>
> My real favorite, though, is the Panizza.

Panizza is intense and has a characterful cast--easy to see why his
would be a favorite, but I still keep coming back to the Toscanini
recording (as a result Vinay is etched in my brain as Otello; I
remember he's also very effective in a Fritz Busch-led broadcast) as
well as various Kleiber performances. Domingo may not have power, but
he is intelligent and musical and on record I'd rather have him than
the overpowering and sometimes too unsubtle Del Monaco. It's a matter
of taste when balance isn't an issue. Sometimes Del Monaco seems to be
the better temperament for Otello.

-Jeff

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 6:46 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:01:43 -0800 (PST), Mark S
>

No doubt those cuts were made to accommodate the video production.
That's the "why." This is the cut that I find excusable, especially in
a video production that is more of a movie than a filmed stage
production. I'd say that is an example of a careful cutting of a
masterpiece.

The Act 3 cut you mention is probably inexcusable.

[M forever]

On Feb 12, 10:45 pm, jrsnfld <jrsn...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 12:25 pm, wkasimer <wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Mark, while I am certainly not a fan of Domingo, and can't argue with
> > you about his Otello in the flesh (which I never heard), the lack of
> > vocal power is largely irrelevant on records.  I don't think much of
> > him on the Maazel or Levine recordings (and the Levine is ruled out,
> > for me, by Milnes' Iago, which is little more than Snidely Whiplash
> > set to Verdi's music), but much to my surprise, I've always liked the
> > last one on DG, conducted by Chung, with Studer and Leiferkus.
>
> The DG recording has outstanding sound and Chung and his orchestra are
> divine. It's a fine first version of the opera.

Completely agree.

I wish there was a studio recording with Sinopoli.

[wagnerfan]

There is no reason in the world why that bit in Act Two could not
have been recorded and edited in - the cut in Act Three is inexcusable
and indefensible, Verdi composed this music and knew what he was doing
- I have to be convinced that someone else knows better. Interesting
that Karajans first Otello had too much (that ballet music) and the
second too little. I have never seen a cut production of this
opera.Wagner fan

[Mark S]

On Feb 12, 7:45 pm, jrsnfld <jrsn...@aol.com> wrote:
> Domingo may not have power, but
> he is intelligent and musical and on record I'd rather have him than
> the overpowering and sometimes too unsubtle Del Monaco. It's a matter
> of taste when balance isn't an issue. Sometimes Del Monaco seems to be
> the better temperament for Otello.
>

I find that Domingo over thinks the part.

Otello is a conflicted character, but he is not necessarily a complex
character. Let's not forget that Iago sets about to bring him down
through jealousy, which is a very base human emotional response when
dealing with a relationship, especially that between a husband and
wife. That Iago knows that jealously will work on Otello indicates to
me, at least, that he realizes Otello to be at his core an
uncomplicated person. He's a warrior, a leader, a governor and - when
with his wife - a lover. But he isn't exactly a skilled politician or
a person who can tame his emotions and make dispassionate decisions.
What you see is what you get with Otello.

Domingo's Otello presents (to my way of thinking) an Otello who would
never be able to bring himself to murder his wife. I have no question
that Del Monaco's Otello would do so.

[M forever]

On Feb 12, 11:09 pm, Mark S <markstenr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 7:45 pm, jrsnfld <jrsn...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Domingo may not have power, but
> > he is intelligent and musical and on record I'd rather have him than
> > the overpowering and sometimes too unsubtle Del Monaco. It's a matter
> > of taste when balance isn't an issue. Sometimes Del Monaco seems to be
> > the better temperament for Otello.
>
> I find that Domingo over thinks the part.
>
> Otello is a conflicted character, but he is not necessarily a complex
> character. Let's not forget that Iago sets about to bring him down
> through jealousy, which is a very base human emotional response when
> dealing with a relationship, especially that between a husband and
> wife. That Iago knows that jealously will work on Otello indicates to
> me, at least, that he realizes Otello to be at his core an
> uncomplicated person. He's a warrior, a leader, a governor and - when
> with his wife - a lover. But he isn't exactly a skilled politician or
> a person who can tame his emotions and make dispassionate decisions.
> What you see is what you get with Otello.

That's your interpretation of Otello. But one can also see it the
opposite way. Very complex characters sometimes have surprising, and
surprisingly simple and obvious weaknesses. One can also see Otello as
such a character, not just the way you see him.

You have complex opinions about music yourself, but I think Domingo is
a red flag for you. Maybe you should rethink him.

[M forever]

On Feb 12, 9:42 pm, wkasimer <wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 5:04 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Re Furtwangler:
>
> >   Yep you are right - the booklet with the EMI set explains that the
> > original tapes are lost and the transfer has been made from a
> > combination of the best possible sources .
>
> And those sources are none too good.  A very disappointing recordings,
> and not just because of the sound.  Schoeffler is awful,

How so?

[Mark S]

I have similar feelings about Vickers' portrayal of Otello (ie: over
thought), but his voice and the intensity and commitment of his acting
win me over.

[jrsnfld]

Base instincts are all the more compelling (sinister) because they
inevitably overtake even the most controlled, calculated, or
"balanced" people. While it's easy and comfortable to dismiss Otello
as uncomplicated (and hey, this is opera, so it works all the better
that way), the thing that makes an audience squirm while watching
Otello, which Shakespeare surely understood, is that nearly everyone
can remember a time when they were irrationally jealous.

Anyway, I can see how del Monaco fits the part. I can live easily with
Domingo's Otello, too, and, as I said, I'm not a huge fan of del
Monaco as a musician, overall. Domingo, fortunately, worked with
Kleiber and Chung and Levine, all of whom conduct this music
particularly well. My del Monaco recording is a 1958 broadcast with
Cleva, who is just fine, but not as riveting or orchestrally
"interesting" as the cast is strong. (Perhaps I should try the Karajan
with del Monaco, but I've already got a live Karajan with Freni/
Vickers).

--Jeff

[Dennis DeSantis]

Without a doubt the Tebaldi-Delmonaco recording on London/Decca with the
ballet music in Act III. Karajan is magnificent in this recording with
singers in top form. I have never heard a conductor that can match
Karajan's handling of this score. Tebaldi is definitive as Desdemona. I
would have said the same for Delmonaco as Otello but I have seen Domingo in
the part and he is the best for me. But on the whole this performance tops
them all.

"Andy Evans" wrote in message
news:b93d38dd-3148-4acd...@k40g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...

In the UK here BBC Building a Library has just reviewed different
versions of Otello - should be online for a few weeks:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio3/bal/bal_20120211-1015a.mp3

Since this is just one guy's opinions, I'd be interested (as a
newcomer to this work) to know which recordings those of you familiar
with the opera would rate as favourites.

Andy Evans

[Andy Evans]

> Domingo's Otello presents (to my way of thinking) an Otello who would
> never be able to bring himself to murder his wife. I have no question
> that Del Monaco's Otello would do so.

That's a very clever way of putting it!

I'm not familiar with Boito's libretto here, but I can refer to the
original Shakespeare. Shakespeare, as we all know, created many of the
phrases in the English language, and had his finger firmly on what I'd
call "natural wisdom". His works are full of the collision between
natural wisdom on the one hand and distortions of natural wisdom on
the other hand which his tragic heroes make under the influence of
strong emotions and of specious reasoning based on false premises.
Often natural wisdom is vested in the females (but also in ancilliary
characters like jesters) and it's the males that over-rationalise, are
slaves to their egos and emotions and get things badly wrong. As Puck
says "Lord what fools these mortals be". With a proper dose of natural
wisdom anybody could see Desdemona loves Othello, Cordelia loves Lear,
the King has been good to Macbeth, Shylock is off his trolly and so
on. And yet these male characters are intelligent and capable in other
circumstances. They are just capable of delusion, driven on the one
hand by emotions like greed, jealousy and ambition, and on the other
hand by a capacity for believing intellectual conceits (popular in
Elizabethan England) that were totally counter intuitive to others.
These "mortal fools" are too easily deluded by witches, Iagos, fawning
daughters and so on.

So with this in mind, Otello should essentially be a character
defective in natural wisdom - poor at understanding psychology. A
character in the grip of strong emotions, but a "male" personality
that is over-thinking, un-empathic and over-inclined to trust
reasoning and principles rather than natural wisdom and feelings. So
quite a primitive unreformed version of the principled "male", well
before Freud. Not that Shakespeare himself didn't have an infinitely
subtle understanding of psychology, but he didn't put that into many
of these tragic heroes (Hamlet being an exception).

Domingo comes across as more "modern" male - more psychological. I
think the role needs something more elemental - more Latin Macho like
Del Monaco if you like. So yes, for murder Del Monaco's your man!

Andy

[Andy Evans]

> I find that Domingo over thinks the part.
>
> Otello is a conflicted character, but he is not necessarily a complex
> character. Let's not forget that Iago sets about to bring him down
> through jealousy, which is a very base human emotional response when
> dealing with a relationship, especially that between a husband and
> wife. That Iago knows that jealously will work on Otello indicates to
> me, at least, that he realizes Otello to be at his core an
> uncomplicated person. He's a warrior, a leader, a governor and - when
> with his wife - a lover. But he isn't exactly a skilled politician or
> a person who can tame his emotions and make dispassionate decisions.
> What you see is what you get with Otello.

Yes - that's exactly how I see it. Not complex in the "psychological"
sense, but not unintelligent and not incapable of reasoning. The fatal
weakness in these characters is an inability to see natural wisdom -
which Shakespeare's audiences can see all too well as the plot unfolds
and these action heroes spiral away into their delusional thinking and
commit awful acts. Probably "pig headed" would be a good way of
describing it.

andy

[Andy Evans]

> Re Furtwangler:
>
> >   Yep you are right - the booklet with the EMI set explains that the
> > original tapes are lost and the transfer has been made from a
> > combination of the best possible sources .
>
> And those sources are none too good.  A very disappointing recordings,
> and not just because of the sound.  Schoeffler is awful, Martinis no
> better than adequate, and Vinay is heard to better effect with
> Toscanini.
>
> Bill

This recording doesn't seem to have any friends, but I think it's
better than that. Martinis ratchets up the intensity with the drama in
her voice, and can be quite spine chilling in places. I mean, this is
a woman about to be murdered and she has every right to sound
unhinged. This recording has the right degree of "horror movie" edge-
of-the-seat fear. I'm not getting that with Domingo and several of the
nicely sung but essentially rather bland Desdemonas. I think
Furtwangler does the fright night stuff pretty well

andy

[Angelotti]

I think, having both Del Monaco's studio recordings, his most subtle
Otello is to be found in the movie, made for the RAI (1958) with
Rosanna Carteri and Renato Capecchi, conducted by Tullio Serafin:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Verdi-Otello-Serafin-Monaco-NTSC/dp/B00005RE6U/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1329128168&sr=1-1

Video in black and white not too good, but the sound is rather good
(mono). Carteri is a lovely Desdemona (by the way I love her Mimi with
Tagliavini) and Capecchi a very good Iago.
Very much recommended.
Hvdlinden

[Andy Evans]

> Schoeffler is awful, Martinis no
> > better than adequate, and Vinay is heard to better effect with
> > Toscanini.
>
> > Bill
>
> This recording doesn't seem to have any friends, but I think it's
> better than that. Martinis ratchets up the intensity with the drama in
> her voice, and can be quite spine chilling in places. I mean, this is
> a woman about to be murdered and she has every right to sound
> unhinged. This recording has the right degree of "horror movie" edge-
> of-the-seat fear. I'm not getting that with Domingo and several of the
> nicely sung but essentially rather bland Desdemonas. I think
> Furtwangler does the fright night stuff pretty well
>
> andy

Here's Martinis in Act 4. Somebody evidently feels the same way as I
do - "so unbelievably gorgeous. this gives me chills!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeuWO2Rlrr0&feature=related

[Angelotti]

from the Del Monaco - Carteri - Capecchi - Serafin movie:

Dio ti giocondi..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyS8ScWOuOk

and Si per ciel..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PpreW9WT8

Hvdlinden

[wkasimer]

On Feb 12, 10:54 pm, M forever <ms1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > And those sources are none too good.  A very disappointing recordings,
> > and not just because of the sound.  Schoeffler is awful,
>
> How so?

I don't think that Schoeffler was every a great vocalist, even at his
best, in the 40's. To my ears, the voice always sounds a little dull
and wooly. It's not really a matter of lack of an Italianate sound -
it's that Schoeffler's sound is better suited to the more genial
characters in his repertoire. Verdi needs a voice with a brighter
sound. Leiferkus is even less "Italianate" (and his Italian is
certainly anything but idiomatic), but he's a more effective Iago.

Bill

[jrsnfld]

Thanks for the analysis, Andy. I think that sort of boils down the
choice we have: too much macho and the character is potentially
unsympathetic. Too little macho and the character is potentially
unbelievable.

--Jeff

[MiNe 109]

In article
<650a1907-c481-4979...@f5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Tassilo <david...@aol.com> wrote:

> On Feb 12, 12:22 pm, Andy Evans <performanceandme...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd be interested (as a
> > newcomer to this work) to know which recordings those of you familiar
> > with the opera would rate as favourites.
>
> > Andy Evans
>

> I¹ve heard my fair share of Otello recordings, including live or
> studio recordings with Martinelli, Vinay, Del Monaco, Vickers,
> Domingo, and Windgassen, including live or studio recordings with
> Ettore Panizza, Toscanini, Furtwängler, Busch, Erede, Fausto Cleva,
> Serafin, Karajan, Solti, Levine, Carlos Kleiber, Maazel, Muti, and
> Chung, and the best CONDUCTED Otello I¹ve ever heard is this one:
>
> Giuseppe Verdi: Otello
> Desdemona: Cesy Broggini
> Otello: Carlos Guichandut
> Cassio: Angelo Mercuriali
> Iago: Giuseppe Taddei
> Orchesttra della RAI di Torinp
> Franco Capuana
> Torino, 8 June 1955
>
> This performance of Otello is an article of faith with me, a document
> of everything I love about the best Italian performances of Italian
> opera from before the bad old days when Abbado, Muti, and Levine came
> along to whip the money lenders out of the temple.
>
> Thanks to Capuana, I actually prefer this performance to the NBC SO
> broadcast with Toscanini, good as it is.

<snip>

> Although listenable, the sound is not great, even for 1955. Making
> matters worse, some of the CD reissues have been heavily over
> filtered. Pick up either of these releases on Warner Fonit, which
> feature the same rather good remasterings:
>
> Warner Fonit 8573 82653-2
> http://tinyurl.com/3dgpq4
>
> Warner Fonit 5051011-2205-2-4
> http://tinyurl.com/2wvwmw
>
> -david gable

I really enjoy your advocacy! Spotify has several Capuana-led
recordings: Lucia, Mefistofele, Fanciulla. I'll give 'em a try.

Stephen

[M forever]

What does "Italianiate" mean? A bright sound? Why does Verdi generally
need brighter voices? Even for a bad boy like Iago?

[wagnerfan]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:39:43 -0800 (PST), M forever <ms1...@gmail.com>
wrote:

I always liked Schoffler - it wasn't a beautiful voice per se but his
technique was so secure he was singing into his 70s and he was so
intelligent!!! His Sachs was very famous - every line imbued with
humanity and feeling and his Barak in the 1955 Bohm Decca set is
marvelous. They said at the MET when he sang Sachs that "you knew he
made the best shoes in town!!" A wonderful artist Wagner fan

[Mark S]

I've always liked Schoffler, too.

His Iago isn't the greatest Iago, and it isn't sung in the Italian
fashion, but one can't fault him for stretching his rep beyond the
German fare. Truth is, he probably got hired for this role based on
his German fare.

[Andy Evans]

I found this "shootout" of Otellos (or maybe Otelli...) on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYh5TSWS0ME

This introduced me for the first time to Lauri Volpi, and I've been
entranced by him - downloading all I can in Otello which admittedly
isn't more than a handful of excerpts. Any other fans here?

Andy

[wagnerfan]

I recently saw him in a video of Ariadne from Aix in the mid 60s - the
voice is still big and potent and he is such a wonderful and natural
actor. Interestingly he sings the same role in the 1944 Ariadne
conducted by Bohm released on DGG (my first Ariadne) Wagner fan

[wagnerfan]

Yes in his prime he was the real thing - a big dramatic Italian tenor
(do we have any now) he sang a LONG time and sings very late in career
a Trovatore and Luisa Miller for the RAI Verdi celebrations - the
legato is gone but he could still bang out the top!!! Wagner fan

[Andy Evans]

> >BTW, what's the best transfer of the Toscanini?  I have the Naxos,
> >which is fine, but has anyone heard the Opus Kura?
>
> >Bill
>
>  Is the Opus Kura a transfer of the RCA set?? (which the Naxos and
> Guild are not)   Wagner fan

Does anybody know the Pristine transfer?

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Vocal/PACO033.php

I'm interested in comparing it with the Naxos. Can anyone comment?

andy

[Tassilo]

On Feb 13, 9:30 am, MiNe 109 <smcelr...@POPaustin.rr.com> wrote:


> I really enjoy your advocacy! Spotify has several Capuana-led
> recordings: Lucia, Mefistofele, Fanciulla. I'll give 'em a try.

> Stephen

I especially like Capuana’s contribution to these live recordings of
Aida:

Verdi: Aida
Gabriella Tucci, Giulietta Simionato, Mario del Monaco, Aldo Protti,
Paolo Washington
NHK Symphony Orchestra
Franco Capuana
Tokyo, 16-10-1961

Verdi: Aida
Leyla Gencer, Fiorenza Cossotto, Carlo Bergonzi, Anselmo Colzani,
Bonaldo Giaiotti
Orchestra e coro dell’Arena di Verona
Franco Capuana
Summer 1966

I’m also a great admirer of Capuana here:

Boito: Mefistofele
Gabriella Tucci, Carlo Bergonzi, Nicolai Ghiaurov
Orchestra e coro dell’Arena di Verona
Franco Capuana
July 1964

At this point, the very last thing I ever want to listen to is another
smooth slick unidiomatic studio recording of Italian opera with
Karajan, Solti, etc. Give me Serafin or any of a host of mid-century
Italian conductors including Capuana, the best of whom are vastly
under-rated and condescended to precisely because they made their
careers in the orchestra pit of the Italian opera houses.

(I do like Chung’s recording of Otello with Domingo, which has been
mentioned in this thread, but the DG post-production has wiped the
surface of Chung’s performance clean of every articulating nuance and
replaced it with something smooth and slick. What we hear on DG is
most certainly not what Chung heard standing on the podium in front of
the orchestra.)

-Tassilo

[Andy Evans]

> At this point, the very last thing I ever want to listen to is another
> smooth slick unidiomatic studio recording of Italian opera with
> Karajan, Solti, etc.  Give me Serafin or any of a host of mid-century
> Italian conductors including Capuana, the best of whom are vastly
> under-rated and condescended to precisely because they made their
> careers in the orchestra pit of the Italian opera houses.

> -Tassilo

I've moved on to Falstaff and I like the version on Myto with Rossi
conducting Gobi, Ligabue, Alberti, Marimpietri, Lazzari etc in 1966. I
know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way about Janacek - vastly
prefer Jilek to Mackerras with VPO in Jenufa.

Andy

[wade]

On Feb 12, 1:12 pm, Mark S <markstenr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 12:52 pm, Randy Lane <randy.l...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 12, 12:40 pm, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:28:40 -0500, wagnerfan <ivanmax...@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
>
> > > >On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:25:15 -0800 (PST), wkasimer
> > > ><wkasi...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > > >>On Feb 12, 2:56 pm, Mark S <markstenr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > >>> I'd second your basic recommendations, though I cannot recommend any
> > > >>> recording of Domingo as Otello. He's just not an Otello in my books
> > > >>> (didn't seem to hurt his bookings, though). He simply lacks the vocal
> > > >>> power this role demands, and I say that as someone who heard him - and
> > > >>> couldn't hear him much of the time - sing the role at The Met.
>
> > > >>Mark, while I am certainly not a fan of Domingo, and can't argue with
> > > >>you about his Otello in the flesh (which I never heard), the lack of
> > > >>vocal power is largely irrelevant on records.  I don't think much of
> > > >>him on the Maazel or Levine recordings (and the Levine is ruled out,
> > > >>for me, by Milnes' Iago, which is little more than Snidely Whiplash
> > > >>set to Verdi's music), but much to my surprise, I've always liked the
> > > >>last one on DG, conducted by Chung, with Studer and Leiferkus.
>
> > > >>My real favorite, though, is the Panizza.

>
> > > >>BTW, what's the best transfer of the Toscanini?  I have the Naxos,
> > > >>which is fine, but has anyone heard the Opus Kura?
>
> > > >>Bill
> > > > Is the Opus Kura a transfer of the RCA set?? (which the Naxos and
> > > >Guild are not)   Wagner fan
>

> > >   Ok I see from the cover that the source is HMV LPs (?) Opus Kura
> > > does really good work and I see HB direct has it for 16.00 plus
> > > change.
> > > Wagner fan- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > Vickers is still the most convincing and thrilling Otello I've ever
> > heard, and with Rysanek and Gobbi as Desdemona and Iago, this
> > recordings still gets my nod:
>
> >http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000B9KO
>
> Vickers was indeed a thrilling Otello in the house, and his recordings
> pretty well represent what he did with the role.
>
> That said, it was my experience that one needed only see Vickers'
> Otello once, because he almost never varied his approach to the role.
> That was as true of his vocalizing of the role as it was of the
> gestures he made on stage. If you watch the DG video of his Otello
> (with Freni/Karajan) you are seeing exactly what Vickers did every
> time he performed the role. His performances of Otello became - to me
> - like a museum piece that never changes beyond whatever effect the
> lighting does to bring out one aspect a bit more than the other. I say
> this having seen him in the role at The Met on at least 5 different
> occasions.
>
> As far as the two commercial recordings Vickers made of the piece, he
> was extremely displeased with the RCA effort, especially as he and
> Gobbi ended up doing something like 14 full-voiced takes of the "Si,
> pel ciel" duet because the orchestra kept flubbing up the works.
> Vickers went on at some length about how that duet in particular as it
> appears on the record features two exhausted singers being accompanied
> by an orchestra that finally got every note in place.
>
> While I prefer Vickers voice in his early years - like his Don Carlo
> from Covent Garden - I think that overall, his later, Karajan-led
> Otello offers the best representation of what Vickers could do with
> this role, even with the crack on the "Exsultate" and an inordinate
> amount of crooning elsewhere.

I always wondered what criteria were used by RCA to decide what was to
be "Soria-ized" versus what would go into their normal issue line (not
that the production values of the regular RCA, booklets at least, were
slouches when compared to the contemporaneous Decca/London libretto
production values (generally cheaply done)).

[Tassilo]

On Feb 15, 9:45 am, Andy Evans <performanceandme...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've moved on to Falstaff and I like the version on Myto with Rossi
> conducting Gobi, Ligabue, Alberti, Marimpietri, Lazzari etc in 1966. I
> know exactly what you mean. I feel the same way about Janacek - vastly
> prefer Jilek to Mackerras with VPO in Jenufa.

I love that Falstaff. Here are two others cut from similar cloth:

Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff
Rosanna Carteri, Anna Moffo, Fedora Barbieri, Luigi Alva, Tito Gobbi,
Scipio Colombo, Orchestra e coro di Milano della RAI, Tullio Serafin
Live telecast, Milan, 9 May, 1956
[This has been released on DVD: a friend ripped the audio for me.]

Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff
Renata Tebaldi, Mirella Freni, Fedora Barbieri, Agostino Lazzari, Tito
Gobbi, Renato Capecchi, Chorus & Orchestra of the Teatro San Carlo,
Mario Rossi
Naples, 1 December, 1962
[This is on Opera d’Oro.]

For some reason I’ve never warmed up to the old Cetra recording with
Mario Rossi. (I do like the Toscanini recording, but these three
performances with Rossi and Serafin have something Tocanini doesn’t.)

-dg

[holland....@gmail.com]

[holland....@gmail.com]

On Monday, 13 February 2012 10:16:35 UTC, Andy Evans wrote:

Tito Gobbi thought this was the best conducted Otello he had heard so that should be good enough for anyone.

[mrs...@gmail.com]

Does anyone know from which recording is this Esultate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-feXlMPdFY

[wagner...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 2:46:22 PM UTC-5, mrs...@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone know from which recording is this Esultate?
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-feXlMPdFY

Pretty amazing 0 he was always thrilling in that section

[Ricardo Jimenez]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2016 07:39:10 -0800 (PST), holland....@gmail.com
wrote:

>On Monday, 13 February 2012 10:16:35 UTC, Andy Evans wrote:
>> > Re Furtwangler:
>> >
>> > >   Yep you are right - the booklet with the EMI set explains that the
>> > > original tapes are lost and the transfer has been made from a
>> > > combination of the best possible sources .
>> >
>> > And those sources are none too good.  A very disappointing recordings,
>> > and not just because of the sound.  Schoeffler is awful, Martinis no
>> > better than adequate, and Vinay is heard to better effect with
>> > Toscanini.
>> >
>> > Bill

There have been a number of BD/DVDs of Otello that came out recently.
For example, an outdoor performance under Myung-Whun Chung from the
courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale Di Venezia. Has anybody here looked
into these new DVDs and have an opinion on how they compare to the old
favorites with Domingo? I believe there are three of the latter.

[gggg...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 8:12:32 AM UTC-10, wagnerfan wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:22:25 -0800 (PST), Andy Evans
> <performan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >In the UK here BBC Building a Library has just reviewed different
> >versions of Otello - should be online for a few weeks:
> >
> >http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio3/bal/bal_20120211-1015a.mp3
> >
> >Since this is just one guy's opinions, I'd be interested (as a

> >newcomer to this work) to know which recordings those of you familiar
> >with the opera would rate as favourites.
> >
> >Andy Evans

> The Toscanin has to be included due to the incredible orchestral
> conception and execution - if ever an orchestra where the extension of
> a conductors will it is here in this recording. The cast is a strong
> one - Vinay did not have the most beautiful voice in the world but he
> inhabits the role as few others; Nelli gives her not insignificnat
> best- its still not quite enough but doesn't let down the entire
> recording. Valdengo also gives his best -snarling evil. Much more than
> the sum of the parts - you can get the edited version from RCA but the
> actual broadcast with narrations is available from a couple sources
> Naxos and Guild...

The following recent article agrees:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.opera/hX338Ofpfdw

[jeffc]

You might have to wait a few years until he
has the role firmly 'under his belt' but Jonas
Kaufmann might be the next great Otello.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/arts/music/jonas-kaufmann-otello.html

[meyers...@gmail.com]

His debut in the role was a great success

[gggg...@gmail.com]

According to this:

- Verdi: “Otello,” with Ramón Vinay, Herva Nelli, Giuseppe Valdengo, NBC Symphony and Chorus, Studio 8-H, 1947. James Levine’s nomination for the greatest opera recording ever made. Very intimately recorded and harrowing.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/toscaninis-greatest-recorded-performances