Yes, we experience the Otello production in Budapest and yes, José was sensational--still the finest Otello to be found on the planet--but golly-gosh-gee was it otherwise disappointing.   Think black stage with just a few spots of light.  Think no props for the actors to work with and often no physical interaction to support the narrative: think Montano on one side of the stage and Cassio on the other; when the libretto indicates Montano is injured during his [non-existent, in this case] fight with Cassio, he just hunches over.  Think Desdemona asking for her non-existing wedding nightgown or trying to hand Emilia a non-existent wedding ring.   Think shadows so dark you can't see faces as the singers emote replaced with light boxes so bright for the love duet and the final act that the singers become silhouettes.  Think nearly naked men and women in the opening scene twisting about in the foreground, fighting each other in slow motion, only to slink away after Otello delivers Esultate, never to be seen again.  Think chorus members moving like robots, with stops and starts and redirections for no apparent reason.  Think people dress in black with black face masks who dash around the stage, doing the bidding of Iago.   Think nonsensical stage directions, as when Otello insists he will stand guard all night, alone only to immediately leave to go into his lightbox (bedroom) while some dude in black stands impassive above them.  Think the black Iago gets Otello to paint his face with (only on opening night, thank goodness; calmer, cooler folks must have prevailed to end that insanity.) Think of the cultural appropriation of styling Desdemona and Emilia in cornrows for unknown and unknowable reasons.  Think of the madness of a director who pitches his story in black and white (emphasis on black) with too little light and who then adds a black net scrim across the front of the stage to further obscure everything.  

As near as we can tell, the director hates the audience and doesn't believe we have the right to see as well as hear an opera.   And while we are on the subject of what the director dislikes, we have to assume he doesn’t like or understand the opera he was producing because this was the most enervated Otello we have experienced, devoid of any of the depth of tragedy that leaves us emotionally drained at the end of the evening... 

There's more, much more, which we'll get into next week but it is enough to say that José Cura was triumphant against all odds.   We hope this isn't his last Otello; such a giant among tenors deserves his final outing to be a production done with dignity and sensitivity and with a supporting band of cast and crew equal to his artistic level.

Next week we'll delve more into the production.   (BTW, we just have to say that the official photos from the production are misleading: taken during a rehearsal with better lighting and no scrim, they give something of an impression that this staging was visible to the audience with sufficient clarity as to get a read on faces and emotions.   That happened only if you were seated in the front of the theater and during select scenes when the principles managed to find the light and stay in it for the scene; if you were in the boxes, that darn scrim distorted everything and made the stage at times almost impenetrably dark and blurry.)  This was one time that even José couldn't create the magic.