Gramophone

'"A hit, a very palpable hit" is how Opera Editor, Harold Rosenthal, greeted this ENO production of Otello when it was first seen at the London Coliseum in September 1981. It was a view echoed by Alan Blyth in these columns two-and-a-half years later when EMI issued this live recording of the revival...
Dramma lirico in four acts
Libretto by Arrigo Boito
after Shakespeare
English translation by Andrew Porter

The Cast

Charles Craig, tenor - Otello
Rosalind Plowright, soprano (PMF Scholar) - Desdemona
Neil Howlett, baritone - Iago
Shelagh Squires, mezzo-soprano - Emilia
Bonaventura Bottone, tenor - Cassio
Stuart Kale, tenor - Roderigo
Sean Rea, bass - Lodovico
Malcolm Rivers, baritone - Montano
Gordon Traynor, baritone - Herald
English National Opera Chorus
English National Opera Orchestra
Mark Elder - conductor

Recorded live at the London Coliseum
6, 22, 25 & 28 January 1983
Producer - John Fraser
Sound engineer - Stuart Eltham
Otello
CHAN 3068
For my own part, I have never seen the point of releasing on record English-language recordings of foreign-language operas... Yet if any recording was going to change my mind, this Otello would be the one to do it. In the first place, the translation by Andrew Porter is technically adept and a minor work of art in its own right. In the second, it is rather a fine performance. When William Weaver reviewed this revival for Opera in 1983, he thought Plowright outstanding musically as well as theatrically... "she managed to convey a sense of fragility, vulnerability and at the same time, of noble dignity."'

BBC Music Magazine
'... this is an electrifying performance centred around the astonishing performance of the late Charles Craig, 62 at the time of the recording and one of the greatest tenors Britain has ever produced.'