Stage Instructions

Stage Instructions The composer’s stage instructions are important and crucial to opera performances. They are a window, as it were, to our understanding of the issues the composer presents in his work. To disregard them means that we are altering the work, sometimes in a drastic way. An example from Verdi’s Otello will serve to clarify this important concept. Act IV. Desdemona has gone to bed and anxiously awaits Otello’s entrance. She is full of foreboding and is uneasy. Otello enters. The music is eerie and the atmosphere is full of mystery and tension. In the scene that follows Otello accuses his wife of infidelity which she vehemently denies. Otello is beyond reason; he has resolved to murder Desdemona based on Iago’s cleverly orchestrated evidence. As Otello’s rage increases with Desdemona’s every hapless and frenzied attempt to deny the false accusations, the tempi of Verdi’s music increase and the orchestra’s volume rises as though a horse is galloping uncontrollably at breakneck speed. Finally, Otello murders Desdemona. Of course, the truth comes out in the end and Otello, full of remorse, stabs himself to death at the foot of the bed where his beloved wife’s inert body lay. https://youtu.be/Uyy2CuTQ_oE Verdi’s stage instruction is clear. Otello is to suffocate Desdemona to death. For whatever reason, best known to stage directors, some productions, have their Otellos stab, Desdemona. It is a small detail; after all, Desdemona dies anyhow. So why make an issue of this matter? But the difference between death by stabbing and by suffocation is tremendous. Consider the following. A person who uses an instrument to commit murder need only throw the instrument aside. By this simple act, he divests himself from any involvement with the deed – a kind of ablution. Suffocation is different; its effect is achieved only when the victim breathes his last and the hand that suffocates must apply pressure until the deed is completed. One cannot discard one’s limb. He virtually watches as the victim’s life ebbs away. Such murder is much more personal, more intimate; the emotional investment is far greater. Verdi was well aware of the difference; he was sensitive and understood the human condition. His instruction to the stage director was made intentionally. Such liberties as taken by stage directors do a terrible injustice to the composers’ deep understanding of and respect for the human spirit for they do not take into sufficient account the composer’s deep involvement and investment in his creation. Check out my book in http//:amzn.to/20qeTNd