Hilary Finch [Times Online, 8 December 2008]
Beware the green-eyed monster! Azzo, Duke of Ferrara, had rather more cause for his jealousy than Otello; but Donizetti’s rarely performed “melodramma”, composed half a century before Verdi’s opera, does have its pre-echoes, and it was one of the greatest successes of Donizetti’s lifetime.