Virginia Zeani Desdemona's Willow Song, Rossini

Rossini's Otello was first performed in Naples at the Teatro del Fondo on the 4th December 1816, ten months after "Il Barbiere di Siviglia". The opera is seldom performed nowadays, partly due to the difficulty of finding three principal tenors with very high voices and coloratura techniques, and because it has been largely eclipsed by Verdi's 1871 masterpiece. it is nevertheless well worth hearing, being full of beautiful music. This exquisite Willow Song with its haunting melody and dramatic incident carries pre echoes of the Verdi "Salce" that was to come half a century later. It was in this opera that Maria Malibran was said to have thought her father, singing Otello, was actually going to kill her on stage, so realistic was the drama. This RAI [Italian Radio] performance dates from 1960. The singers are mostly those from the highly successful production staged by Rome Opera the same year. The striking sets are by the famous surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico.