Otello

One of the chief pleasures of this live production of Otello from the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden is Daniel Barenboims conducting From the opening galeforce blast of storm music through the crunching and stabbing accompaniment of Iagos Credo to the shimmering strings of Desdemonas Willow Song he doesnt miss a trick Everything works at the highest pitch of intensity and the orchestra sticks to his beat like glue Its a necessary compensation for the shortcomings of the staging the stolid chorus remains unperturbed by the storm and is directed to perform with unison movements the acting apart from Valeri Alexejev is noncommittal and Alexandre Tartas video direction somewhat flatfooted She doesnt manage to make much smallscreen sense of an impenetrably murky opening scene for example and doesnt seem fond of reaction shots