Verdi’s Otello is sometimes called the greatest tragic opera of all, and it is of course impossible to have a great tragedy without a great villain to help bring it on. Iago is one of the great villains in opera, indeed in all literature. He brings chaos wherever he goes, and orchestrates it. … so evil is he that he deems it necessary to codify his malignant system of belief, which he sings in “Credo in un dio crudel”. You don’t have to know Italian to discern that this credo is a catalog of discord, cynicism, deviousness, and malice. On many a Saturday I listened to the voice of baritone Sherrill Milnes, truly one of the great Iagos.
“Sangue! Sangue! Sangue!” sings Placido Domingo as Otello.
: I can think of no one who looks as beautifully tragic as Desdemona than Renee Fleming.