Wen 丨 Robinson's diary
Edit 丨Robinson's diary
From the second act, the dialogue between Daisy Demona and Othello is basically carried out in conflict. In Act I, Scene 3, Othello has been instigated by Yago and begins to suspect the relationship between Daisy Demona and his adjutant Casio.
And Daisy Demona came to intercede for Casio, one is jealous, the other is ignorant and wants to intercede for someone who the other regards as a love rival, which makes the first conversation between the two in this play inevitably lead to conflict. Desdemona appears to the joyful tribute chorus of the island's people, immersed in the joy of marriage bliss, after which the violin gently repeats a rhythm on the same pitch: "One seems to foreshadow the uncertainty and subtlety of what follows."
When she sings, "His sorrow touches me with sincerity, he deserves forgiveness", the strings end the monorhythmic pattern that has been repeated before, and become a long, lingering melodic line to portray Daisy Demona's sincere sympathy for Casio, her melodies are full of tenderness and accompanied by some coquettishness.
When Othello shouts again, "Not now," the music suddenly becomes tense, and the vibrato, timpani and brass instruments of the strings depict Desdemona's nervous, fearful psychology, and her singing does not have a beautiful melody, but an almost incoherent declarative sentence: "Why are you so rough? Are you uncomfortable?...... Let me wrap my head around you with a handkerchief, it would be better... Husband, are you angry?".
After panicking, Daisy Demona came back to her senses and decided to touch the angry Othello with tenderness, when the band suddenly stopped her and apologized: "I don't know what I offended, please forgive me", and each verse was followed by simple column chords played gently by strings, vividly portraying Desdemona's trembling and cautious psychology in the face of her angry husband.
In this conflicting music, Verdi not only pays attention to the psychology and relationship of the characters in the singing of the characters, such as Daisy Demona's beginning of melodic intercession and coquettish singing, and after discovering that Othello became angry, he replaced the beautiful melody with a flustered narrative tone, and resumed the melodic singing again in order to achieve a compromise through apologies.
Moreover, the description of the band's music participation in the plot is also very ingenious, such as the use of strings to gently repeat a single rhythm to portray the subtlety of the plot development and the heroine's careful psychology, the use of the vibrato of the strings to express the tension of the relationship between the characters, and the insertion of percussion instruments and brass instruments to express the bursts of jealousy and anger in Othello's heart, which all reflect Verdi's loyalty to using opera music to shape characters and serve the drama.
The conflicting dialogue between Desdemona and Othello expresses the turmoil and fierce collision of their emotions. Othello's emotions are very complicated, he loves and hates his wife, including deep love for his wife, hatred for his wife betraying him, shame caused by his wife's infidelity, and dazedness after losing love, so at this time Othello is sometimes angry and murderous, sometimes full of tenderness and love.
Desdemona is overwhelmed by her husband's changeable emotions, on the one hand, her heart is suffering from a huge blow and pain, on the other hand, she still tries to confess her love to win Othello's understanding.
Therefore, the conflicting dialogue between the two is Zhang Chi with degree, and the combination of narrative phrases and lyrical melodies creates a dramatic scene one by one. Act III, Scene 2: Othello and Desdemona's dialogue on chastity is a typical conflict of Zhang Chi's combination.
Act 3, Scene 2 begins with a duet between the duo about the white hands of Desdemona, in which Othello laments that his wife's white and wet hands are "inhabited by demons with bad intentions", and Desdemona confesses that she "has done her best for her husband with hands that have never tasted sorrow".
When her tenderness is about to touch Othello, the frank Daisy Demona mentions Casio, angering and reminding Othello to question the whereabouts of the handkerchief. The music changes from lyrical melodies to tense narrative tones, Othello's reprimanding narrative tone and the orchestra's successive sixteenth notes describe Othello's excitement, and also set off a tense and terrifying atmosphere, and Desdemona is completely stunned, and the dialogue between the two becomes more and more tense and short.
In bar 8 Daisy Demona sings a strong a² that resembles a shout, the column chords of brass and percussion instruments increase the dynamics and tension, then Othello continues to press the whereabouts of the handkerchief to the accompaniment of the jagged progressive ascending and descending chromatic scales in the violin treble area, and in the 11th bar the orchestra plays a very dissonant minus eleven chord, the intensity gradually increases to the level of ff, the flute and violin reach the pitch of 'e³, and Othello growls like a roar on the "f²" note: "tosto! (Go find it right away!)", the duo's first dramatic orgasm in this conflicting music.
At this point the band stopped abruptly for three and a half beats, and after a set of descending scales of the first violin eased the tense music, Desdemona used a smooth, gentle narrative tone to find an explanation for Othello's furious temper: "No kidding, mention Casio and you will change the subject". At this time, Othello repeated a sentence accompanied by progressive sixteenth and thirty-second notes played by the cello:
"Ilfazzoletto! Ilfazzoletto!! I1fazzoletto!!! (That handkerchief!) That handkerchief!! The handkerchief !!)", one sentence higher than the other, one sentence more majestic, Daisy Demona was frightened and exclaimed loudly, the conversation between the two became tense again, Othello had lost his mind, step by step pressed to question his wife whether she was innocent and cursed her to hell, Daisy Demona panicked, just mechanically answered her husband's rude pressing
The atmosphere of tension and intimidation reached the point of almost suffocating, and Desdemona exclaimed helplessly: "Iddiom'aiuti! (God, save me!) ...... Casta... loson... (I'm innocent)" Then Othello let out another startling roar on the treble a²:
"Giuraetidanna! (Swear to hell!)", and the music once again reached a dramatic climax, and more violently than the last. What follows is the lyrical passage in which Desdemona cries for the first time, a buffer against tense and conflicting music.
It also creates an emotional climax of sympathy for Daisy Demona. After crying bitterly and sadly, Desdemona continued to confess her loyalty to her husband, and this confession not only did not save Othello's heart, but made Othello even more excited, when Desdemona asked her husband:
"Qualeilmiofallo", which is a key point in the development of the plot, this answer can let the clueless Daisy Demona know why her husband treats him like this, so in order to elicit this amazing answer, Verdi reduced the overall dynamics of the music to the level of pp, while also simplifying the texture of the band, staying with the amazing word ""
As soon as it burst out of Othello's mouth, the third dramatic climax of the scene came, and the intensity of the music immediately turned to f, and Daisy Demona was shocked when she heard that the words she was usually ashamed to mention were applied to herself, and she cried out with all her strength: "Ciel! No... no... pelbattesmodellafededristiana... (Nope!) I swear to Christ!)" Especially the second sentence: "Ah!nonsonciocheesprimequellaparolaorrenda. (Ahh! I'm not that kind of person!)" The soprano b² sings all the pain and grievances after her humiliation.
While people were expecting who would ease the dramatic conflict, the band reproduced the lyrical music of the two about "white hands" at the beginning of the second scene of this act, and Othello suddenly changed his attitude and politely sang to Desdemona: "Give me your white hands again, I want to apologize to you, forgive me for calling you a prostitute." ”
Everyone can see that this is Othello's hypocrisy, and sure enough, Othello suddenly shouted madly: "You are Othello's wife!", this sentence vividly shows the jealousy and uncontrollable emotions in Othello's heart. Trembling with fright, Desdemona quickly fled the dreaded Othello, ending their conflicting music.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that the misunderstanding between Othello and Daisy Demona will inevitably lead to conflict, and Daisy Demona plays the role of easing the atmosphere in most of her communication with her husband. She obediently answered her husband's questions, tried her best to express her loyalty and love for her husband, and in the face of her husband's excessive words and attitudes, Daisy Demona also had an outburst moment, which was the wail of the sword piercing the heart.
This wail shocked the audience, and sympathy was born and cut like a knife. The status of these conflicting music in opera cannot be ignored, not only undertaking the task of developing the plot, but also creating a dramatic climax. Verdi's gripping and intriguing narrative is depicted in music, and the tension between the two is subtly depicted in a tense atmosphere that takes one's breath away and inevitably leads to a dramatic climax, like a long-accumulated flood suddenly breaking through a dike.
After that, Verdi will inevitably design a few lyrical phrases to make people's nervous mood relax a little, this kind of Zhang Chi design not only makes the opera full of excitement and drama, but also in line with the psychological and physiological habits of the viewer, which is the mastery of Verdi's musical creation, so it is not difficult to understand the great success of "Othello" after the premiere and the touching scene of "deafening cheers and the audience mesmerized".