I heard and saw Milnes in person once. This was his Iago in Chicago during the fall of 1985. We know from Milnes' autobiography about his vocal troubles during the 1980s. As I recall, he sounded a little husky; and again, I never heard him live elsewhere. That said, Milnes' sound in this theater was enormous. He sang Iago's first lines offstage, yet his voice was louder than those of anyone onstage
I believe I watched this performance live from PBS -- friends got me started loving opera back in 1978. I first saw Sherrill perform in The Bartered Bride. He was sexy and evil, just like in Otello!! ... too bad they don't have the subtitles here.
@Detectivefiction Not likely in the near future (commercially, anyway), now that the Met has released the TV telecast of the previous season's OTELLO (with Vickers, MacNeil, and Scotto; Levine) on Sony DVD. They're both VERY, VERY good performances - but, personally, I would like to have SEEN McCracken as Tannhauser (especially since, as things turned out, he never sang it again at the Met after 1977-78). That much said, this IS a very good performance!!!!!
@stevevandien Franco Zeffirelli didn't design the costumes for this production, though he did stage it and design the sets. The costumes were designed by Peter J. Hall (and those costume designs were retained in the 1994 new production of OTELLO at the Met, though new sets were designed by Michael Yeargan for that production).
Too bad the mic' s didn't pick up the true size of his voice. I heard him at least a dozen times at The Met. It was powerful! Especially at this time in his career.
*@nir0bateman, I think you've abandoned this channel. I sent you a PM some months ago and since YT is ending the feature in a few days, I'll put it here:* _@nir0bateman, hola, que tal. Do you have the full performance still available to share of this Otello with Doming and Milnes? If so, I'd be so very grateful. I hope you're still tending to this channel. * fingers crossed * Mil gracias, paz y salud. 3apr18_
@Steve, @Detective, Milnes started performing before tv started telecasting staged opera, so his acting style was still designed to reach the back of the house. Soon thereafter he adjusted his style when appropriate. My favorite baritone, most esp for this role.
@Gioachino Rossini JAGO = TITTA RUFFO , RICCARDO STRACCIARI, GIUSEPPE DANISE, CARLO TAGLIABUE, CARLO GALEFFI, LAWRENCE TIBBETT, LEONARD WARREN, APOLO GRANFORTE, ROBERT MERRILL, CORNELMACNEIL, GIANGIACOMO GUELFI, STOYAN POPOV, IVAN PETROV, IVAN POPOV, ETTORE BASTIANINI etc...etc...etc... 1 LAWRENCE TIBETT = 50 sherrill milnes .
Theater acting is different. The Met holds almost 4000 seats. You HAVE to "overact vocally and physically." The fact that you don't know this speaks volumes.
