Sunday Night Music

12/08/2013 06:00:00 PM
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I think Verdi's Otello gets unfairly excluded from albums of opera arias because it doesn't have many breakaway five-minute segments for record companies to parse onto a CD. But the opera really is non-stop beauty from start to finish, with few moments that aren't filled with absolutely stunning orchestration, brilliant choruses, and moving arias. Here is opera's hunkiest baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky, perhaps best known as the definitive Eugene Onegin, singing Iago's Credo from Otello.
The opera is based on Shakespeare's Othello, though gigantic cuts were made because singing takes much longer. Here, in an aside with no real analogue in the play, Iago rather candidly reveals his true, cruel nature to the audience. I've heard better orchestras, but Hvorostovsky is great as usual. Translation here.