 Otello is a story that everybody knows, they have studied it at school, they have read it at some time or another, and it's a very simple, direct, and remarkably clear story in the opera as put together by Boito and Verdi. It's all about an evil lieutenant of Otello Iago, who really poisons the mind of Otello against his own wife, and it's all out of jealousy. He in fact is the one who's jealous, he's jealous of Casio having received promotion, but he's always warning Otello not to be jealous, and in those moments when he does it, we hear very sinister music underneath. Well, Otello falls for the story, he gets tricked, he's made very jealous of his own wife, and he murders her, and he finds out at the very end that in fact Iago was behind the whole thing, he was pulling the strings, and knowing that he has no future, that he has killed the only love he ever really had, Otello suicides at the end. So it's a great tragedy, and it's a tragedy about the frailty of human beings, the fact that we do listen to gossip, we often believe it to our own detriment as Otello discovered. Otello is such a powerful work that you shouldn't do it unless you have a first-rate Otello, and that was the first element that I needed to have in considering doing the opera at all. And when I heard Sergei Lahren, I knew that he would be appropriate for it by 2003. We actually discussed it in 1999 over dinner in Paris, and he agreed that he would take on the role for the first time here in San Diego, and then we built the cast around him with Marina Miseriekova, Alexandru Agache, Richard Troxel, Priti Gandhi, and we've developed, I think, a wonderful ensemble for this production that allows him to excel in the role of Otello. I think that for every tenor who can maybe in the whole career afford this role, every tenor is a lucky person. It's difficult, but it's so exciting, so interesting. When you start from the very top result, so you really live in this drama, and that's why I like so much Otello. I can tell it now because before it was, I was always thinking, yes, I like the character, but maybe it's not completely my cup of tea, but now I tell that I love this character, and you cannot tell that Otello is completely positive or it's a hero. Maybe, especially during the development of the story, maybe he's more negative than positive, but the end of the opera, when he kills this demon and comes this moment of catharsis when his soul is completely cleaned. He killed his wife, but he cleaned his soul because he understood what he did. I'm so attracted by musical drama, by this masterpiece of Verdi, and I will try to do this, at least in one production. I cannot think about the future, but I should, and I must do, honestly, my duty now, here in San Diego. Marina Ayador, I think she's a fun lady, a wonderful singer. I'd seen her work in Europe, and we had a wonderful long dinner once in Italy after a performance that went on for hours. And she's such a sensitive, enjoyable, happy woman, and I knew that she would fit the nature of our company. With all our information, with all the years which were prepared before, the most difficult to be still innocent, to be still really clear with your old decisions, it's a big challenge for that role. And you have to feel it all the time what you're doing in this piece, from beginning to the end. Well, maybe it's not really the right word for the English, the role is very clean. You don't need to be dramatic on it, you don't need to be showing everyone in the public that, you know, look, I'm dying, I'm just so beautiful, I'm dying in a few minutes. No, it's just, you know, normal, like she did before, many, many times. And it's just take a little bit more emotionally when she starts to speak about herself. And the most beautiful, per noi, per noi, tu prega. This is the most beautiful, you know, always you pray for us. And that's the beauty of this scene, and again, very, very clean. And this is, I think, the most dramatic. You don't need to be, you know, showing everyone is too, too complicated, too, too non-natural, let's say. You know, before people, of course, she felt something, that, you know, something fatal things has happened with you. But, you know, you don't need to show in this. It's my feeling. It must be the most innocent on it. Alexandru Agache first was heard by me on reporting, and then I saw him at Covent Garden as a wonderful Simon Bokenegra quite a few years ago with Kiri Tekanoa. And I knew that he had the strength of character as an artist, as a singer and a performer to stand up to Sergei and Marina. The character of Jago, it's a complex one. He has very more faces. And these faces, I think, he changed all the time the relationship in order to whom he's speaking with. So he has, for instance, with Roderigo, he is very ironic with Casio. He's very free and easy with Othello. Othello is very respectful and very admirative. He shows, of course, he's not. But he's an evil. He's a villain person, a villain man. He's not a Satan. He's not the Mephisto. He's just an ordinary man who hates everything that he hasn't, he has not. So he cannot laugh. So he hates the people who are in love, who showed love and respect for the other people. He's not a courage man. He's a soldier, but he's a coward. He's a violent, a perfid. So what's worse, it's Jago. He has no principle of morality and religious, how do you say, when some believe in the God and everything. That's why, for instance, in the credo, when he sings credo, he tells that everything he believes in is an evil God, in an evil man, in an evil nature. And he's a very terrible character, I think. Let the San Diego Opera orchestra. When it comes to the great Verdi works in this company, I always think of Eduardo, because Eduardo has a long association with us. He cares about the company standards, he cares about where we're going, and he brings such a wealth of experience and knowledge, and particularly when we have a singer doing a role for the first time. It's very important to know that this is the mature Verdi, the completely mature Verdi. Verdi had three periods in his life as an artist. The first period was beautiful tunes, beautiful singing, great aggressive theatre. The second period was more mature and he entered in the human soul of the characters he was depicting. In the third part, he not just was able to enter in the human soul, but he was able to use completely new means for describing this. And I think this comes from what he used to call the parola shemica, which means the scenic word. He starts with this cooperation with Boito, and he starts from the meaning of the word. And then he translates these words in music, not just in the vocal lines, but in music in the orchestra. What is interesting, and I'm asking the public to pay attention to this, is the kind of color the orchestra will have, the kind of instruments that he will use for describing situations. To perceive the color of the English horn when in the last act Desdemona is singing that song of her mother a long time ago. To pay attention to the color of the bass when Otello enters and he is going to kill Desdemona. Deep, dark, only that instrument could describe the situation. And also the way that he suggests the musical line in one way and then it doesn't go in the obvious ways as one could expect. But it goes somewhere else according to the meanings of the words. So in this sense he is very modern. I would like to do from letter N, which means Valporto. Valporto con quanto più posto? This has to be piano. In my opinion there must be a part of improvisation in rehearsals. I try not to come to well prepared with an idea. And the results of the work will be done with the kind of singers that I will have, the kind of orchestra, and of course according to what the stage director thinks. And sometimes I can have also some different opinion and sometimes I have some argument. But this is life, this is part of art. Now, move. You've got... Your eyes have to register. Those two words really have got to register with you. This is a special human but also professional relation with Sonia. Because we know, let's say, 40 years probably something like that. Before we both came to La Scala working as assistant. I was assistant of many conductors and she was assistant of many directors. Don't fuss with this. It's very important. However it's... Just grab it. You know where she's going. Emilia Tene Prego. When she calls you the Emilia, counter clear, rather than going to her, so that you're closer to this. Okay. I'm not one of these directors that tips the interpretation one way or the other or tries to be very intellectual. They just listen to the music and try and flow with the music and express that on the stage. Sorry, I'm pig-headed. Think of that and see what comes out of it when you don't do it. Yeah, that. And start the tension earlier. On amore. They fully jante amore. What the hell are you talking about? More na bianca. Even that. Just one hand as you turn to go away from him. I have to show singers what I want because I don't know what I want until I do it myself. I know the score very well. But the encounter with every singer is different. So you can't come in with a fixed set of ideas or something written down in paper because it's a building process which happens in the encounter of your two personalities. I have to stand up and show what I want. But I used to think, oh, you ought to be able to sit there and explain it intellectually. And I always felt, well, there was something missing in my way of directing until I read Taran Guthrie's memoirs. And Taran Guthrie says, I don't know why, but the how is inextricably linked with the why. So then I thought, OK, if Taran Guthrie does that, then it's OK. Question of how you direct. Everybody directs in a different way. Some people direct. Peter Hall once said, it doesn't matter what you do. It matters why you do it. It matters what you're thinking. First of all, you have to get the thinking process right, and then you do it. So it doesn't matter if you go left or you go right, but it matters why you go left or you go right. When I was doing the Don Carlos in Los Angeles, there was a singer who was singing to Bartlett who wanted to be a director, and we went out one day. She took me on a hike in the mountains, and she said, I'm very lucky to work in Los Angeles because Peter Hemmings has so many great directors coming in, and I learned from watching everybody's style. And so there's people that direct by being totally brilliant and were all fascinated by the fact that they never stopped talking. There's people that direct by terror. You know, everybody's shaking and their knees are trembling. There's people direct by secrecy and taking people off into the corner and whispering, and nobody else ever knows. She said, it's strange because you don't do any of these things. You just direct on a flow of energy, and everything you say is open for everybody else, and you just take us along with you on the flow of your energy. Well, I'd never stopped to think or formulate how or why I directed until she said this. I have to tell you, as I've got older, when the flow of energy hasn't made me be nice. As enthusiastic as it used to be, it's a bit more wearing on me. But it's true. I mean, the music somehow makes something happen, and I have to get up and move it on. I can't sit still. I can't actually sit in rehearsals. I have to stand all through rehearsals because I want to feel the life of the thing. There are some operas in which the chorus becomes a real protagonist and is very dominant. A good example is Puccini's Turandot, where the whole of the opening is devoted to the chorus, and much the same happens in Verdi's Artello. Without a great chorus to launch the opera, as it were, during the storm, the opera will fall flat. Unfortunately, we have a great chorus here in San Diego led by Todd Simmons. I believe that Otello is probably next to the Requiem, one of the most difficult choruses for them to learn. At the same time, it was one of the easiest ones in that they enjoyed it so much. With Norma, it was difficult to learn because there was not a lot musically challenging about it. It appears like this because it's so musically challenging. They have to concentrate more, they have to focus more, they have to work harder to learn it, and so they learn it more solidly and quicker. You begin by breaking them up, teaching them individually who sings what, how they interact with each other, because you can't learn your individual line. You'll hear throughout, particularly during the Fogoneggioio, they have individual lines, but they form one solid line. They have to learn individually where they are and how they work with the entire structure. They have to be singing everybody's line in their head or they'll be late. In the opening of the opera, the chorus is a very important character in that they are the ones who are seeing the battle at sea. It has our boat sunk, we see a flag, we see a sail, it's the lion, it's our guys. Then they sink, and then, oh, he's okay, but oh no, now the hotel ship is sinking. Oh, he's okay. And they're the ones that, through their actions and their texts, are the ones that paint the picture to the audience of something that is nowhere being seen whatsoever. But because they're there, they give the audience this big image that's offstage. The chorus has to act, not just physically, but with their voices. And we do that from the beginning. They're opening una vela, they have to say that with fear in them. They have to sing that, that's almost spoken. They have to give you, if you're only hearing them, the picture of how they are feeling. Eduardo likewise wants that exact same thing. If that's not there, no matter how much direction that Sonya gives you, it's not going to make sense just because they're standing in a position or doing something. They have to be able to act with their voices and their minds and their bodies. Chorus, we have the artists, we have the conductor, we have the director, and this is an opera not to be missed.