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Otello - Week 3

Welcome students and teachers to opera online!

Continuing to look at the main characters of the opera, next we will look at Desdemona who is Otellos wife.

Website of the week
Norah Amsellem will make her Opera Company of Philadelphia debut as Desdemona in Otello. Find out more about her life, roles and future performances visit her website.

YouTube Clip of the Week

This week we'll see Desdemona's famous Willow Song and Ave Maria from the last act of the opera. This scene opens the last act of the opera. Dedemona has just been humiliated in front of the Cyprian and Venetian noblemen when Otello threw her to the ground in front of everyone. he orders her go to go bed. With an ominous sense of foreboding, Desdemona remembers her mother's maidservant Barbara who was abandoned by her lover and used to sing a sad song, the Willow Song. Now Desdemona sings the song and as Emilia departs desperately cries out to her. Alone, Desdemona prays the Virgin Mary and goes to bed.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa as Desdemona sings "Ave Maria" from Verdi's Otello. A Royal Opera House Covent Garden production from 1992. To follow along with the text, visit EMI Classics webpage and go to page 92 at cue 16 with the text "Mia madre aveva una povera ancella."

WILLOW SONG


AVE MARIA




On Saturday, August 28th at 1pm WRTI Radio will broadcast Puccin's Il trittico, a series of three one act operas. Each self-contained opera has its own unique plot and set of characters. The operas within Il trittico are Il tabarro (about an unhappily married woman who has an affair with one of her husband's workers), Suor Angelica (about a woman who had a baby out of wedlock and was forced to become a nun to save her family's honor), and Gianni Schicchi (a comedy about how an old man manages to steal the inheritance of a rich family.

The cast includes:

Il Tabarro

Suor Angelica

Gianni Schicchi


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Until next week…


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