¡Lástima que Kaufmann haya tenido junto a él a ese "fardo" que es Vratogna, pues toda escena en que aparece el barítono de La Spezia la convierte en... en... en... La arruina...!

Marco Vratogna, tonight’s Iago, will never in his entire career sing one line as well as any one line sung by Kaufmann. But in many ways his performance was weirdly more satisfying than the hugely more talented Kaufmann’s. Vratogna is fun. He’s having fun, and he’s letting us see that. There’s a contract being made between performer and spectator in a way that there never is with Kaufmann, who invites us to View His Art.

Vratogna is also an excellent actor, especially in listening mode, a crucial skill for an Iago. He’s made decisions about every line he sings and every line he hears, and knows how to put them across. HD transmissions are brutal in exposing moments of blankness, and Vratogna had none. I mean, look, it’s not a great voice. At the beginning of the evening he sounds how you’d expect a great singer to sound at the end of one—and then the voice gets tired.

But he knows how this music goes, and rides the climaxes well, and makes some arresting if broad choices with vocal colour. There’s a Cetra-mono-box-set vibe about him that I can’t help but respond to. And he made something genuinely chilling of the end of the Credo—suddenly terrified of what he had said, as if not knowing where it might have come from—which made a moment which can be a less-than-subtle set piece into something more complex and (hell, I’ll say it, I’m a thousand words in) Shakespearian.

Pues ya ve, el muchacho tiene sus admiradores. El texto que copio a continuación apareció en Parterre Box hace unos días:



Con saludos a Tip y Delaforce

Pues ya ve, el muchacho tiene sus admiradores.