Verdi - Otello - Windgassen, Jurinac - Quadri 1965ARD
Wolfgang Windgassen (Otello), Sena Jurinac (Desdemona), Norman Mittelmann (IAGO), Margarita Lilowa (Emilia), William Blankenship (Cassio), Adolf Dallapoza (Rodrigo), Walter Kreppel (Lodovico), Willy Franz (Montano), Leo Heppe (Herald)
Sinfonieorchester Des Süddeutschen Rundfunks, Stuttgart Chor Der Wiener Staatsoper & Wiener Sängerknaben
Argeo Quadri (conductor) & Otto Schenk (director)
Verdi’s opera Othello in a sympathetic studio recording from the early years of television. The camera’s roving eye lends Otto Schenk’s production an intimacy which inspires a vocal and dramatic tour de force from Wolfgang Windgassen and Sena Jurinac in the roles of the tragic lovers Othello and Desdemona. Musical direction is in the hands of the great Verdi conductor Argeo Quadri. For unlike with other opera films, the producers in Vienna did not use playback but recorded each scene live. A further drawback was the fact that the television studios were too small to accommodate a full-size opera orchestra. The musicians and conductor were situated in an acoustically appropriate but geographically separate hall, linked to the film studio only by cables and monitors. This arrangement called for utmost concentration from all parties. The scenes were recorded live; editing technology as we know it today did not exist, so the work involved filming lengthy passages and repeating them as necessary. Product info DVD
