A Revealing Personal Touch

One of the most dramatic of all baritone arias is Credo in un Dio Crudel(I believe in a cruel God). It appears in Act II of Verdi’s Otello and is sung by the treacherous Iago immediately after he dispatches Cassio to ask Desdemona to intercede with Otello on Cassio’s behalf to restore Cassio’s former rank. The main theme of the aria is that God is cruel; he created Man in his image. And as Iago is a man, he is born cruel and conducts himself accordingly. Love, honesty, and charity are for fools. Life is nothing; after death there is nothing. [https://youtu.be/TNLbXE-kIlQ]. Iago then begins to implement his plan to ruin Otello as we well know from Shakespeare’s play Othello. A soliloquy parallel to the aria does not appear in Shakespeare’s work; it is entirely the figment of Verdi’s imagination. While it may raise many an eyebrow, the very fact that it exists as part of Verdi’s opera requires our respect and attention. Verdi intentionally created the aria and not conveniently, but rather purposely, placed it where he did in the action. It remains for us to understand why. Recalling the scene that immediately precedes the aria, we realize that, in enlisting Cassio as a witness to Otello’s action during the brawl in the closing moments of Act I, Iago has ensured for himself what he believes to be a justifiable cause for Otello’s replacement as commander, due to incompetence. It is a possible defense should he need it. Iago will, of course, use the aria as a springboard for further plans to destroy Otello. By introducing the aria Verdi adds a personal touch to his version of an age-old story of deception and deceit and he does so in musical terms.