La Scala: Otello

Opera in four acts (1887) New Production! La Scala’s gala season opening is always a glittering highlight of the international opera calendar and one of the most closely watched premieres of the year. This season, Myung-whun Chung inaugurates his first year as Music Director with Verdi’s Shakespearean masterpiece ‘Otello’, composed for La Scala in 1887 to a libretto by Arrigo Boito. The opera traces the downfall of the Moorish general Otello (Brian Jagde), his devoted wife Desdemona (Eleonora Buratto) and his ensign Iago (Luca Salsi), whose insidious lies ignite jealousy, fracture trust and drive the lovers towards catastrophe. In his eighth staging for La Scala – and his first season-opening premiere – Damiano Michieletto explores the human fragility and inner conflicts at the heart of the drama.