A new production of Verdi’s thrilling Shakespeare-inspired opera Otello, conducted by Antiono Pappano and directed by Olivier Award-winner Keith Warner, will be broadcast live to the Torch Theatre, Milford Haven, later this month.

World-famous tenor Jonas Kaufmann makes his role debut as Otello in this passionate retelling of Shakespeare’s great tragedy of jealousy, deception and murder. Soprano Maria Agresta will be his Desdemona and baritone Ludovic Tézier his nemesis Iago in this new production.

The Italian musical landscape had changed during Verdi’s period of isolation, with many of his compatriots finding inspiration in foreign operatic innovations. Verdi responds in Otello with music that looks back to the traditional forms and structures of Italian opera, but which carries an unmistakably different dramatic thrust and fluidity, in response to Shakespeare’s text. The results are thrilling: from the violent storm that opens the opera through to Iago’s blood-chilling Credo and Otello’s increasingly desperate duets with Desdemona.

Keith Warner (Wozzeck, Der Ring des Nibelungen) directs a new production of this masterpiece, The Royal Opera’s first in 30 years.

A major work of the opera repertory, Verdi’s Otello draws on the full forces of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the Royal Opera Chorus and this stellar line-up of principal singers, with exquisite duets, emotionally potent solo numbers and thrilling choruses. Particular highlights include Otello and Desdemona’s rapturous love duet and Desdemona’s poignant ‘Willow Song‘.

This Italian masterpiece starring Jonas Kaufman, Maria Agresta and Ludovic Tezier is sung in Italian with English subtitles. Ticket prices: full £19, concessions £17, TLC £17, under 16s £8.50.

You can see Otello verdi at the Torch Theatre on Wednesday, June 28, at 7.15 pm.