Asmik Grigorian enhances Dinémon’s greatness on the stage of the Royal Theater | Culture | EUROtoday
DESDÉMONA carries in his etymology the seed of misfortune (from the Greek dusdaímōn“Unfortunate”). It is the one correct identify of the Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinto story that served as the bottom for William Shakespeare for The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Arrigo Baito made it for Giuseppe Verdi right into a pure and harmless determine, whereas the composer assigned him a lyric soprano file, versatile and of nice cantability, though with out the ability of earlier heroines comparable to Aida or Leonora of The power of destinyconceived for a pushed of higher dramatic weight.
Asmik Grigorian proposes his personal imaginative and prescient of the character. Leave naivety apart and search to embody a recognizable sufferer of sexist and femicide violence, each within the current and in a close-by previous. He acknowledges himself in disdain and underlines his gestures of greatness, as confessed to Benjamín G. Rosado in these pages. But it additionally displaces the function in the direction of a barely extra dramatic profile, as demonstrated within the duo of the third act towards Otello and, particularly, in his monologue Foreign (“Terrified”), the place she put the expressive depth of her impeccable phrase to the ethereal voices that Verdi signifies within the rating.
The Lithuanian soprano was the spotlight yesterday Friday, September 19, on the stage of the Royal Theater. The inauguration of the 25/26 season recovered, as 10 years in the past, the manufacturing of David Alden of the penultimate opera of Verdi, launched in 2009 on the English National Opera. Grigorian raised the fourth act with an admirable Sauce tunethrough which even within the half voices the shadow of stress of those that anticipate the arrival of his assassin was perceived. Then spilled on the Ave Maria His most beautiful legatoturning it into the perfect of the night.

None of it might have been potential with no director like Nicola Luisotti, who radiates musicality and Italianity from the pit. His consciousness of the fourth act was fashions, in addition to the administration of the advanced complete scenes, such because the preliminary storm, the place he most popular to not abuse the tempos too alive in favor of a really perfect combination of precision, steadiness and depth. The high quality of the choir and orchestra holders of the Real Theater made the remaining, with a dense and compact mass of voices and a corporeal and crisp, sustained by secure metals and beautiful woods, as demonstrated by Álvaro Vega’s English just one that opened the aforementioned Sauce tune.
But Grigorian didn’t have an Ollo at his peak. There is little doubt that Brian Jagde sang with poise and boldness in his debut comparable to General Moro, one of the demanding and uncovered roles of the Italian repertoire, a sort of Tristán Verdiano. However, the character was blurred. It was a correctly sung tello, however with out scenic authority: an nearly infantile lover within the first act, unable to impose concern of Yago or another, whose evolution brings him nearer to a insane than a progressively violent and fearsome man. The vocal situation of American tenor is admirable, particularly contemplating that it recovered throughout the summer time of a diverticulitis operation. In his first look he received with valentia and resonant acute in Exulte! y I decrease the swords!though within the duo of affection with disdain, the restrictions of its dynamic palette had been evidenced, dropping some shade in probably the most refined passages. After the break improved within the third and fourth occasions, though with out reaching a very memorable musical second.
The identical may be stated of Gabriele Viviani’s Yago, an alternative to the initially introduced Igor Golovatenko. Lucca’s baritone is inscribed within the vaguely diabolical and histrionic custom of the Verdian villain, removed from the psychological depth that the Russian had most likely contributed. His correct and nicely projected intonation, though considerably tense within the acute, was not sufficient to focus on in his well-known Credo of the second act. His character, which Verdi acknowledged Baito in a well-known letter “except for some outbreaks, could be sang in full voice,” was stained from a sure monotony. Among the secondary ones, the great Cassio of the Canarian Tenor Airam Hernández stood out.

The low theatrical degree of this manufacturing of Otello is straight associated to the chilly and distant scenic path of David Alden. The prestigious supervisor American doesn’t obtain right here the extraordinary theatricality he had already proven within the Real Theater along with his productions of Alcina The commerce O Lucia di Lammermoor of Donizetti. His proposal to position the motion on the time when Verdi and Baito composed the opera, with a wardrobe and an austere surroundings of Jon Morrell, shouldn’t be misguided, neither is the oppressive lighting of Adam Silverman, which initiatives extreme shadows. However, his insistence on the psychological doesn’t correspond to the diffuse actors or disconnection concerning the basic interactions between the characters. The spatial separation finally ends up turning into a ballast, and its regular provocations don’t exceed the anecdotal: the overact dancers of the primary act, the conversion of Otello and Yago in brothers of blood or the usage of a Byzantine desk of the Virgin as Diana for the darts of Yago and Cassio.
‘Otello’
Giuseppe Verdi music. Arrigo Baito Libretto Based on The Tragedy of Othello, The Moore of Venice by William Shakespeare
Brian Jagde, Tenor (Otello); Gabriele Viviani, Barítono (Yago); AIRAM Hernández, Tenor (Cassio); Albert casals, tenore (roderigo); In Sung Sim, Bajo (Lodovico); Fernando Radó, Bajobarítono (Montano/Un Haraldo); Asmik Grigorian, Soprano (Desdémon); Enkelejda shkoza, mezzosoprano (Emilia).
Choir and Orchestra holders of the Royal Theater. Small singers of the Orcam
Choir Director: José Luis Basso.
Musical handle: Nicola Luisotti.
Scene handle: David Alden.
Real Theater, September 19. Until October 6.
https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-09-20/asmik-grigorian-realza-la-grandeza-de-desdemona-sobre-el-escenario-del-teatro-real.html