Milan. (International).(performances at La Scala)(Brief Article)

Sometimes opera becomes poignantly autobiographical for performers. At the second of Placido Domingo's performances as Verdi's Otello at La Scala (Dec. 11), his still-burnished voice failed him completely during the Moor's farewell to his heroic past, in the middle of the culminating and telling phrase: "Della gloria d'Otello e questo il fin." At this very point, the most glorious Otello of the last quarter-century remained silent and then, meekly apologizing, walked off the stage. After a fifteen-minute pause -- during which the conductor, Riccardo Muti, and the Iago, Leo Nucci, rushed backstage and the audience continued to applaud supportively -- Domingo returned (reportedly ignoring doctors' orders) and completed the phrase, and the opera, with conspicuously diminished resources at first, but with something of his old splendor in the final scene, where another expansive phrase of similar import -- "Oh! Gloria! Otello fu" -- has rarely proved so wrenchingly moving.

This scene was by far the most involving in Graham Vick's new production, based on a massive, semicircular set (designed in appropriately Byzantine hues by Ezio Frigerio) that progressively closed in on the characters. Desdemona's bed was narrow and hard, and during the willow song, she sought comfort by warming herself at a tiny fire. Her murder was a striking release of pent-up violence in full view of the audience, and Otello's death was made all the more tragic by his proving too weak in the end to plant the final kiss on Desdemona's lips.

The three preceding ...