Pavarotti's Gamble

New classical recordings rarely garner the type of hype that the record industry lavishes on more popular and profitable items, but there are exceptions. Advertisements for the "Three Tenors" concert (with Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras) appeared in such unlikely places as subway stations, illustrating the successful use of a formula that was first demonstrated by the soundtrack from Amadeus. It goes like this: In order to guarantee a popular success with a classical recording, bring together popular (and relatively well-known) music, big names and a good pretext, such as a movie or a memorable concert.

A new recording of Verdi's Otello on London Records uses this formula neatly. The music is one of the best-known operas by one of the best-known composers of opera, the names are big (Pavarotti, Kiri te Kanawa and Leo Nucci, with Sir Georg Solti at the helm), and the pretext is a double celebration: the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the 100th recording on CD of Solti with the CSO. But, unlike the "Three Tenors" concert or the Amadeus soundtrack, a new recording of Otello is the kind of project that must stand up to a close critical scrutiny. The field is already crowded with acclaimed readings, and a new comer can't rely on big names and hype to make a successful entry.

Fortunately, this Otello is an impressive offering that should gain a place as one of the standard versions of the opera. The project was a gamble: A not-so-young Pavarotti left concerts in front of royalty and football fans to tackle the role of Otello, a notoriously difficult one, for the first time. What's more, Pavarotti brought his radiant tenor to a tragic role usually sung by deeper voices. This calculated risk almost turned to disaster when most of the principals and the conductor took ill before the performances that were to provide the material for the recording.

As it turned out, the first performance was an astonishing success, and Pavarotti (who munched on pieces of apple during the choruses to keep his throat clear) sang an inspired Otello. This is what comes across on the CD: From the Esultate which marks his entry in the storm-tossed first act to his dying embrace of the martyred Desdemona, Pavarotti sings with the passion of the warrior who boils with jealousy. His lyrical voice is audibly more at ease in passages such as the love duet at the end of the first act, but he doesn't shrink from the over-bearing machismo that, in Otello, explodes at various intervals.

Te Kanawa is an appropriately ingenuous Desdemona and sustains the first half of the last act beautifully with the "Willow Song" and the Ave Maria. Although her performance doesn't mesh entirely with Pavarotti's careful reading of his role (especially in the first-act love duet, which comes across more as two parallel soliloquies), her characterization is admirable, and she comes into her own in the second-act scene where she is admired by the chorus of men, women and children.

Beside the two other principals, Nucci is disappointing as Iago. His voice doesn't seem to provide the kind of deeply treacherous character that the role demands, and, in duets with Pavarotti's passionate warrior, Nucci comes across as an insipid foil rather than a calculating fiend. The tremendous aria Credo in un Dio crudel is unspectacular, and the orchestra actually unseats Nucci in places with its impressive rendering of Verdi's meticulously detailed score. Anthony Rolfe Johnson provides a beautiful Cassio, whose innocent virtue is not equalled by Nucci's sinister duplicity.

The quality of the recording is unimpeachable, and, apart from a few faintly audible coughs, crowd noise does not detract. The few stage effects are effective rather than intrusive (especially Emilia's insistent knocking at the end of the last act). Overall, this is a powerful interpretation of Verdi's incredible tapestry, and it is led by an indefatigable hero. Bravo Pavarotti!