Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887.

With the composer's reluctance to write anything new after the success of Aida in 1871 and his retreat into retirement, it took his Milan publisher Giulio Ricordi the next ten years, first to persuade him to write anything, then to encourage the revision of Verdi's 1857 Simon Boccanegra by introducing Boito as librettist, and finally to begin the arduous process of persuading and cajoling Verdi to see Boito's completed libretto for Otello in 1881. When it premièred in Milan in 1887, it proved to be a resounding success, and further stagings of Otello soon followed at leading theatres throughout Europe and America.

Otello: Plácido Domingo
Desdemona: Renata Scotto
Iago: Sherrill Milnes
Cassio: Frank Little
Roderigo: Paul Cook
Lodovico: Paul Plishka
Montano: Malcolm King
Emilia: Jean Kraft
Herald: Malcolm King

Ambrosian Opera Chorus
National Philharmonic Orchestra; James Levine 1978