Shakespeare, Rossini and Verdi tell three different versions of Othello. The story is the same, but the different treatments give it different flavors. It is a tragedy, but the nature of the tragedy changes. Shakespeare and Verdi present a saint or a goddess who is destroyed by jealousy, but Rossini presents a human victim of her husband's rage. In Shakespeare's play, Desdemona orders her wedding sheets to be placed upon her bed. Shakespeare emphasizes this gesture as a symbol of peace and reconciliation, though ironically Desdemona will soon lie murdered on them. She asks to be buried in those sheets. In Verdi's opera, she asks to be buried in her wedding gown. In Rossini's opera, this line is omitted. Thus, she seems saint-like in Shakespeare and Verdi, but she seems more human and less holy in Rossini.In Shakespeare's play, she sings the "willow" song, unaware of any more immediate menace than the wind knocking upon the door. In Rossini's opera, she thinks the wind is a bad omen, which brings down the elevated meaning of the "willow" song to a mere earthly level. In Verdi's opera, she thinks that the sound of the wind is someone knocking at the door. Thus, Verdi follows Shakespeare in that Desdemona does not understand that the wind is foretelling a future tragedy.Desdemona thinks of the meaning of adultery. She would not do such a wrong "for the whole world." Shakespeare contrasts Desdemona's high standards with those of the practical and down-to-earth Emilia: "Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having the world for your labor, 'tis a wrong in your own world and you might quickly make it right." When Desdemona sings the "willow" song, Emilia she does her best to comfort and console her. She also protests against the "double" sexual standard of men. Women also have "affections, / Desires for sport, and frailty." If men do wrong, then it is their fault that women also do wrong. Shakespeare's Desdemon...
