Tainted love

Otello is the most simple of Verdi’s operas, from a narrative point of view, and in the motivations of its characters, while being the most sophisticated musically, Falstaff as always excepted. Its three chief characters — and Verdi is less interested in any of the subordinate ones than usual — are almost caricatures in their single-mindedness, and Desdemona at least could be thought subnormal, she is so incapable of grasping that her husband would prefer her not to mention Cassio’s name. Iago is famously endowed with a reason for his malignancy, in the form of a demonic world-view expressed in the Credo — though in Act I he has already said that he hates the Moor because he has been overlooked for promotion. Otello is the ‘noble hero’ who wouldn’t presume to question anyone’s word, except Desdemona’s. In the opera, more than in Shakespeare, he falls for Iago’s plot with almost ridiculous alacrity.