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FROM THE HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF CASA RICORDI THE EXCITEMENT OF EXPLORING THE AUTOGRAPHS OF THE MOST FAMOUS ITALIAN OPERAS

Casa Ricordi presents the facsimile of one of the most significant of Verdi's autographs, the score of Otello, in a limited and numbered edition.

The autograph of Otello, bound in four volumes, has been preserved in Casa Ricordi's archives in Milan since the time of the opera's premiere, at La Scala, Milan, in 1887. Verdi wrote the score using different kinds of upright format paper in folios measuring 27 x 35 cm. The four acts were delivered to the publisher Ricordi, who had them separately bound in paper boards with marbled pa per and leather spines, a finish which is reproduced by the facsimile.

The publication will also include an elegant folder with facsimiles of the scores for the ballet music and the Act III Finale Verdi composed for the 1894 performances in Paris. The facsimiles of the opera and the additional Paris material, which comprise this extraordinary document, are complemented by a collection of iconographic material (costume and set designs, sketches o rops, set layouts), also kept in Ricordi's archives, which documents the expeptional care taken by the librettist, Arrigo Boito, by the publisher Giulio Ricordi, and by Verdi himself in planning the staging of this opera.

An essay illustrates the development of Verdi's and Boito's ideas and offers a stimulating commentary on the images, relating them in dramaturgical and cultural terms to the context in which the opera was created.

Sixteen years separate Aida from Otello, which enjoyed huge success at La Scala on the evening of 5 February 1887. During this long period Verdi did not work on any new operas, having declared that he intended to retire.

It was his meeting with the scapigliato poet Arrigo Boito, favoured by Giulio Ricordi, and the idea of another encounter with Shakespeare's poetry that ignited the Maestro's creativity once again. He started to compose the opera in March 1884, finishing it at the end of 1886. In stylistic and dramaturgical terms, the distance between Otello and Verdi’s previous works is obvious. Far removed from traditional forms of metre and versification, extraordinarily varied in its styles of singing which, as arioso, cantabile and declamation, are moulded into Otello's drama of jealousy and identity, Desdemona's suffering and lago's wickedness, Otello marks Verdi's distance from a Risorgimento approach to theatre, with its straightforward heroes, and reflects the subtle intuition and great insight of the seventy-four-year-old Verdi as he tackled an approach to drama of psychological introspection.

Seven years after the Italian premiere, Otello was performed at the Paris Opéra (1894). In order to conform to French conventions, Verdi wrote a ballet to be inserted into the third act, a change which entailed the restructuring of the act and the rewriting of the finale.

Casa Ricordi's historical archives contain a considerable amount of iconographic material pertaining to Otello, most notably the costume and set designs and photographs of the interpreters, which are faithfully reproduced in this edition.

This material bears witness to the spasmodic attention which was devoted to preparation of the premiere. Alfredo Edel, the costume designer was sent to Venice to draw inspiration from paintings and objects in the Correr Museum.

At Arrigo Boito's suggestion, Edel was to base his work on Venetian painting of the 15` and 16` century, from Carpaccio to Bellini. The sketches were examined by Boito, Giuseppe Giacosa and Giulio Ricordi, and finally submitted to Verdi. Carlo Ferrario was engaged as set designer for the premiere, but there is almost no trace of this material in Ricordis archives. Verdi was not satisfied with Ferrario's work, and for the revival at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome Verdi approved - and considered as exemplary - designs by Giovanni Zucarelli, preserved in Ricordi's historical archives. They are reproduced in this volume, as are an extraordinary series of photographs of Verdi at the time of Otello and of the interpreters of the premiere.

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