It was a full and fired-up home on the Kennedy Middle Live performance Corridor on Friday night time, the entire place notably buzzier than regular earlier than the lights dimmed. The stage was additionally fairly mobbed, with the ranks of the Nationwide Symphony Orchestra joined by a large contingent of singers from the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the College of Maryland Live performance Choir and (later within the night) the Kids’s Refrain of Washington.
The event of this ambient pleasure was a efficiency by the NSO of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello” that doubled because the inaugural installment of “Opera in Live performance,” a brand new collection pushed by the pledge of maestro Gianandrea Noseda to carry out at the very least one live performance presentation of an opera every season. (In early 2025, Noseda will lead the orchestra in two performances of Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa,” starring soprano Sondra Radvanovsky within the title position.)
The final time the NSO approached live performance opera was in 2019, but it surely was only a fleeting encounter — the second act of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”
For the Noseda-curious, Friday’s live performance represented a uncommon stateside alternative to expertise the operatic aspect of the conductor, a mode sometimes reserved for his submit as normal music director of Zurich Opera. Having simply accomplished two rounds of an acclaimed “Ring” cycle in Zurich (which stay accessible as free streams on the Zurich Opera’s web site by way of June 15), Noseda’s operatic chops have attracted worldwide consideration, and on the Kennedy Middle, a wide-ranging viewers: “The Wagnerites are all right here,” I overheard somebody comment from my seat. “Although I’m undecided why.” (The shade!)
For an opera so rife with betrayal, deception and jealousy, “Otello” on Friday was nothing however matches made in heaven: the NSO and a solid of proficient singers; the chemistry and compatibility of the singers themselves; Noseda and Verdi (!). It was a night of little surprises, excessive drama and large payoffs.
I wasn’t positive what to make of an unstaged “Otello,” but it surely was truly a eager choice — an opera that acquires new dimensions by way of a live performance therapy. (And never simply because one should die standing up.)
“Otello” is about as late Verdi as you will get. The composer’s penultimate opera premiered in 1887 and adopted an prolonged retreat/supposed retirement from opera. As such, it teems with pent-up musical concepts. Sans staging and lighting and costumes, the concepts turn out to be the structure, the rating turns into the set, and the psychological depth of Verdi’s music takes heart stage — particularly so below Noseda, who introduced his dependable detail-forward strategy to the music with out abandoning any of the requisite bombast.
Thus, the opening tempest of “fearsome trumpets” atop a rumbling flooring of bass and under the mixed glow of the choirs was scenic and deeply satisfying. Ditto the best way the storm appeared to half upon tenor Arsen Soghomonyan’s entrance as Otello — the music onstage alive with a kinetic presence {that a} pit couldn’t assist however tamp. My notes from the third act — throughout which Noseda stoked Otello’s rage right into a wildfire — are only a row of exclamation factors.
Soghomonyan made a wonderful (if barely slouchy) Otello — the surprising heft of his tenor steadily (after which quickly) fraying on the edges as his sanity slips and his proverbial cookie crumbles.
Soprano Erika Grimaldi’s Desdemona got here alive as doom prevailed within the opera’s second half. A surprising “Piangea cantando nell’erma landa” showcased her diamond readability; the “Ave Maria” that adopted, her dramatic ease. Noseda’s mild introduction of the Des-heavy fourth act — an attractive passage of oboe, flute, piccolo and horn — had the affect of a full-on set change.
Noseda introduced out not simply the music but additionally the musicality of Iago’s machinations — the intricate, almost Baroque designs of his deceptions. Or, when messing with Cassio, the sinister undercurrents beneath the frothy floor of their friendship. Sturdily sung — with impressively instantaneous dislikability — by baritone Roman Burdenko, this was an Iago that sounded traditional and canonical with a lurid confidence that felt recent and up to date, i.e., what we now name “poisonous.” Noseda veiled Iago’s lies with harmless violins and sharpened Verdi’s hooks to make them linger within the reminiscence like planted suspicions.
I cherished mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano’s endearing Emilia, whose temporary however arresting alternatives onstage made me overlook this wasn’t a staging. And I used to be particularly moved by Francesco Marsiglia’s Cassio, whose clear, clear tenor felt like a cunningly aware foil for Soghomonyan’s — which felt appropriately perched on a precipice. One thing concerning the solid gleam of his voice — like a hard-edged sword or a navy medal — made his awful therapy really feel that rather more unjust.
At any time when the prospect was afforded, lengthy ovations took over. And whereas they have been triggered by particular person arias, or the ends of acts, the power behind them felt italicized, as if it wasn’t a lot the efficiency incomes the accolades, however the expertise.
Live performance opera is a wonderful method to make opera occur extra typically, extra accessibly and with a level of musical magnification you won’t in any other case get. What I heard on Friday was an orchestra well-suited to the calls for of demanding opera, and an viewers that desires extra.
Opera in Live performance: Noseda conducts Verdi’s Otello repeats Sunday at 3 p.m. on the Kennedy Middle, kennedy-center.com.