Credo in un Dio crudel

Credo in un dio crudel

from Act II of the Italian opera Otello by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto: Arrigo Boïto

Role: Iago, Otello's ensign
Voice Part: baritone
Setting: A hall on the ground floor of the castle.
Synopsis: Iago describes his true motivations for the things he does: "I believe in a cruel God, who has created me in his image and whom, in hate, I name . . . I am evil because I am a man.”

Iago later tells Otello that he should not trust his wife Desdemona and makes Otello believe she had cheated on him. He ends up killing his wife before discovering he had been deceived. A very powerful and tragic opera based on the Shakespeare play.

This 1946 recording is signed on the label by Leonard Warren and is in nearly mint condition. Most records I have recorded are much older than this one. But, it is a special record to me both because of the signature and his early demise which is a more operatic story than any opera ever written or performed.

The very public early demise of the very talented and successful Leonard Warren is such a riveting story it nearly eclipses his singing successes. He started singing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1938 and sang there until that fateful night when he was singing at the Met and died of a cerebral hemorrhage while performing La Forza Del Destino right after singing his aria Urna Fatale del mio destino and a few words into the recitative that followed on March 4, 1960. A very shocking extremely sad moment in the history of the Met and one can only imagine the shock of Rudolf Bing (general manager of the Met) and the audience seeing all this occur in front of their eyes. Now known as much for his death as his singing, it is a major moment in the history of Opera.

The following article tells the story of that fateful night in a very powerful manner. The other links that follow have various takes on his career and death as well.




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