Austin Opera opens its 2018–2019 season with one of opera’s most dramatically and vocally intense masterpieces: Verdi’s Otello, November 10–18, 2018, at the Long Center.

Presented as a festive staged concert event and based on Shakespeare’s iconic characters, Verdi’s Otello is a rarely performed masterwork of personal and political jealousy that will leave Austin audiences breathless.

The victorious naval warrior Otello will be performed by rising star tenor Issachah Savage, who captivated Austin Opera audiences as Radamès in Aida in 2015. Fresh off her triumph as Violetta in our spring 2018 production of La traviata, soprano Marina Costa-Jackson returns to sing the heartbreaking role of the faithful wife Desdemona. Austin Opera favorite baritone Michael Chioldi returns for his fifth role in Austin as the treacherous and cunning Iago. And Steven White, fresh off conducting La traviata, returns to marshal the massive orchestral and vocal forces of Verdi’s passionate score, featuring the Austin Opera orchestra on stage with the vocalists.