Yes he can: Damian Humbley's Max Garber finds the tenor within while Michael Matus's Tito Merelli leaps for joyAll production photographs by Roy Tan

Acid prophecies of this show’s swift demise, as with that of the great Italian tenor whose supposed transformation from il stupendo to il stifferino results in the debut of a surpise new Otello at the "Cleveland Grand Opera", turn out to be greatly exaggerated. Allora, the tunes and the lyrics aren’t prime cut, but it’s slickly done, strongly cast and contains enough frothy set pieces to earn its salt.

Acid prophecies of this show’s swift demise, as with that of the great Italian tenor whose supposed transformation from il stupendo to il stifferino results in the debut of a surpise new Otello at the "Cleveland Grand Opera", turn out to be greatly exaggerated. Allora, the tunes and the lyrics aren’t prime cut, but it’s slickly done, strongly cast and contains enough frothy set pieces to earn its salt. And any musical which has stylish fun with both the most electrifying opening of any opera (Verdi's, of course) and the noblest curtain deserves to run and run, in my book at least.

Sophie-Louise Dann, as the cruelly dubbed inge-not-so-nue, comes close to stealing the show

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