Verdi: Otello by Franco Zeffirelli | Domingo, Ricciarelli, Diaz (Opera Film 1986-ENG & ITA SUB)

Otello is a 1986 film based on the Giuseppe Verdi opera of the same name, which was itself based on the Shakespearean play Othello. Audio in Italian with English and Italian subtitles (click on CC for subtitles).

The film was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starred Plácido Domingo in the title role, Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona and Justino Díaz as Iago. For the film's soundtrack, Lorin Maazel conducted the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala.

The film was nominated for a Bafta Award and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. In the same category, it was also nominated for a Golden Globe. The film was also entered into the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

With only a few exceptions, the film follows the same plot as the opera. Iago plots and brings about Otello's downfall by convincing him that his wife Desdemona is engaged in an affair with the young lieutenant Cassio, provoking Otello to murder her in a blind rage. However, in a major change from the opera, Otello kills Iago at the end by throwing a spear at him, while in the stage version he only wounds him with his sword.

Cast & Characters:
Plácido Domingo as Otello
Katia Ricciarelli as Desdemona
Justino Díaz as Iago
Petra Malakova as Emilia
Urbano Barberini as Cassio
Massimo Foschi as Lodovico
Edwin Francis as Montano
Sergio Nicolai as Roderigo
Remo Remotti as Brabantio
Antonio Pierfederici as Doge

For the most part, the film follows the original score of the opera with several noticeable exceptions. The entire "Willow Song" ("Salce, salce"), Desdemona's solo aria, which is largely considered one of the most beautiful moments in the work, is omitted. However, her "Ave Maria", which follows immediately, is retained in the film. There are, at various points, smaller additional cuts in the music, such as the moment at the end of the storm scene when the chorus is cut short and the film skips to the recitativo between Iago and Roderigo. This contrasts with stage productions of Otello, where the opera is rarely cut. There are also two additions: the extra music from the rarely performed third act ballet (written for the opera's Paris premiere) is inserted into the festivities of the first and third acts in the film.

In some scenes, Zeffirelli was able to use the medium of film to show aspects of his interpretation that could not be done onstage. In the movie, when Iago is informing Otello about Cassio's supposed dream in which he apparently said to Desdemona, "Let us hide our loves", we see Cassio singing the words, not Iago, as in the original stage version. Here Zeffirelli is showing the audience the image of Iago's fabricated dream as Otello is imagining it. Another of Zeffirelli's interpretive decisions was to show, complete with screams and sound effects, a flashback of marauding soldiers attacking an African village and snatching Otello (as a baby) from his mother, while the adult Otello and Desdemona sing their Act I love duet.