The Two Otellos: Verdi & His Bel Canto Heritage

A DAY-LONG SYMPOSIUM ON MARCH 8

ANDREW PORTER, INDRA THOMAS, FRANK PORRETTA III
& WILL CRUTCHFIELD, AMONG SPEAKERS/ PERFORMERS

"Bel Canto at Caramoor" is celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2001, along with the anniversary years of Verdi (1813-1901) and Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) with expanded festival programming this season. Caramoor's opera program, directed by Will Crutchfield, presents fall and spring performances in the intimate Music Room theater as well as Festival opera productions in the summer. Caramoor's Bel Canto program was inaugurated in 1996 with a production of Rossini's La Cenerentola. The warm reception accorded that performance was repeated in 1997 after La Donna Del Lago, which, like the revivals that have followed (Lucrezia Borgia, La Gazza Ladra, Il Pirata), garnered unanimous critical praise and played to sold-out houses in the Venetian Theater, the semi-enclosed 1750-seat concert hall in the bucolic Caramoor estate in Westchester County.

10:30am	Andrew Porter: "Revival reviewed" A pre-eminent opera scholar draws on his fifty-plus years as an active critic to trace the highlights of the Bel Canto revival, and that of the lesser known works of Verdi, from the early performances of young Maria Callas to the present day.
11:15am	Gary Moulsdale: "The tenore di forza" Otello, in both composers' versions, was the defining role for the successful "dramatic tenor." A musicologist specializing in Rossini and voices shows how the meaning of that term underwent transformation over the years separating the two works.
11:45am	Albert Innaurato: "The Dramatics of Jealousy" A playwright examines how Shakespeare and his two musical interpreters understood the primal emotion that drives Otello's story to its fateful end.
12:15pm	Will Crutchfield: "Modelling for Verdi" Caramoor's Opera Director explains the ways the Bel Canto composers borrowed one another's ideas and game plans, and shows how this process played a particularly creative role in sparking Verdi's inspiration.
12:45-2:00pm	Lunch break
2:00pm	"Verdi's Voices" A program of ultra-rare recordings drawn exclusively from singers Verdi collaborated with or heard and commented upon, with excerpts from the composer's letters. Will Crutchfield introduces the selections.
2:45pm	Two Otellos Preview Members of the Caramoor International Festival casts, including Indra Thomas, Frank Porretta III, and Carlo Scibelli, sing parallel scenes from the two works, accompanied by Eric Malson.
3:45pm	Round Table discussion Participants in the seminar discuss the two Otellos and performance style in Rossini and Verdi, with opportunities for questions from the audience.