seeds of jealousy in his breast by calling his attention to Cassio’s interview with Desdemona.  Then follows a charming episode, another of Boito’s interpolations, in which a band of Cypriotes bring flowers to Desdemona.  Othello is won for the moment by the guileless charm of her manner, but his jealousy is revived by her assiduous pleading for Cassio.  He thrusts her from him, and the handkerchief with which she offers to bind his brow is secured by Iago.  Left with his chief, Iago fans the rising flame of jealousy, and the act ends with Othello’s terrific appeal to Heaven for vengeance upon his wife.  In the third act, after an interview of terrible irony and passion between Othello and Desdemona, in which he accuses her to her face of unchastity, and laughs at her indignant denial.  Cassio appears with the handkerchief which he has found in his chamber.  Iago ingeniously contrives that Othello shall recognise it, and at the same time arranges that he shall only hear as much of the conversation as shall confirm him in his infatuation.  Envoys from Venice arrive, bearing the order for Othello’s recall and the appointment of Cassio in his place.  Othello, mad with rage and jealousy, strikes Desdemona to the earth, and drives every one from the hall.  Then his overtaxed brain reels, and he sinks swooning to the floor.  The shouts of the people outside acclaim him as the lion of Venice, while Iago, his heel scornfully placed on Othello’s unconscious breast, cries with ghastly malevolence, ‘Ecco il Leone.’  The last act follows Shakespeare very closely.  Desdemona sings her Willow Song, and, as though conscious of approaching calamity, bids Emilia a pathetic farewell.  Scarcely are her eyes closed in sleep, when Othello enters by a secret door, bent on his fell purpose.  He wakes her with a kiss, and after a brief scene smothers her with a pillow.  Emilia enters with the news of an attempt to assassinate Cassio.  Finding Desdemona lead, she calls for help.  Cassio, Montano, and others rush in; Iago’s treachery is unmasked, and Othello in despair stabs himself, dying in a last kiss upon his dead wife’s lips.

In ‘Otello’ Verdi advanced to undreamed-of heights of freedom and beauty.  ‘Aida’ was a mighty step towards the light, but with ‘Otello’ he finally shook off the trammels of convention.  His inexhaustible stream of melody remained as pure and full as ever, while the more declamatory parts of the opera, down to the slightest piece of recitative, are informed by a richness of suggestion, and an unerring instinct for truth, such as it would be vain to seek in his earlier work.  Rich and picturesque as much of the orchestral writing is, the voice remains, as in his earlier works, the key-stone of the whole structure, and though motives are occasionally repeated with exquisite effect—­as in the case of the ‘Kiss’ theme from the duet in the first act, which is heard again in Othello’s death scene—­Verdi makes no pretence at imitating Wagner’s elaborate use of guiding themes.