Othello, Shakespeare’s great tragedy inspired music of extraordinary ferocity, violence and beauty from one of opera’s most popular composers, Giuseppe Verdi.
Birmingham Opera Company artistic director Graham Vick masterminds this radical opera event, with tenor Ronald Samm and a company of more than 250 actors, singers and dancers drawn from the community.
Verdi’s Othello explores the corrupting, immobilising power of fear in both the individual and the collective consciousness. Iago’s manipulation of fear in Othello fuels his underlying mistrust and paranoia. This need for identity is a primal one.
Seeds of doubt, fed by half lies, eat at the foundations on which a whole persona, a whole society, is built. Fear takes hold and the veneer begins to peel and, when eroded, personalities disintegrate.
production details
UK / BBC-2 / 1×155 minute episode / Broadcast Saturday 19 February 2011 @ 4.25pm
