REVIEW: Opera - Otello
As the lights rose on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, they dimmed in the Odeon in Waterford as the Met production of Otello was beamed via satellite into cinemas across Ireland. The live element added a frisson and when the camera panned around the stalls, our Lincoln Plaza counterparts appeared to be a cheerful lot, not noticeably tuxedoed or pearl festooned, and broader in age range than the 50 or so gathered in the Odeon.
There was much to enjoy. Yannick Nézet-Seguin’s lively conducting of the superb ensemble, exposed the subtleties in Verdi’s score, rife with plangent pizzicatos and dark woodwind colours. Projected images depicting mists and swirling seas worked well on screen and the dramatic action stood out sharply against elegant sets of gliding glass panels bathed in red at ominous moments. The merest blip in Eric Owens bland interval chat with leads reminded us of the potentially precarious nature of satellite broadcast but there were no breaks in transmission.
