The great Sir John Barbirolli only made 3 commercial opera recordings in his life: a Dido & Aeneas with Victoria de los Angeles, the incomparable M. Butterfly with Renata Scotto and Carlo Bergonzi, one of the greatest opera recordings of all time, and this 1969 Otello that has a story.
It was originally planned for Franco Corelli, who although never sang the role on stage, did learn the role for the recording. The Desdemona was going to be Montserrat Caballé, who in the late 60´s had an angelic voice.
As it turned out the great but unstable Corelli had cold feet at the last minute and quit. Caballé was singing Don Carlo at the Arena di Verona and broke a leg, so EMI in a panic hired American tenor James McCracken, who had a big voice but was a brute singing, and instead of the heavenñy pianissimos of la Caballé we got a Turandot for Desdemona. Only Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau survived from the intended cast.
The recording is obviously an historic document for Barbirolli´s conducting alone: a white hot, incandescent performance. It´s a pity that McCracken barks and Jones sounds as if she could have easily strangle Otello herself.
Years later Corelli admitted that it was a mistake to quit the recording. He sang the Otello duet next to Teresa Zylis-Gara under Karl Böhm at the 1972 Rudolf Bing Gala at the MET. And in the early 80´s sang "Niun mi tema" in a recital but with piano accompaniment.
What a tragedy it was for us and him to miss his Otello.
