PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Opera Company of Philadelphia is opening its 35th season in a big way … with a big production of Verdi’s Otello.

It is opera on its grandest scale at the Academy of Music, with five performances beginning Friday, October 1.

“Otello isn’t an opera you just any day,” says Company Director, Robert Driver. “You have to have a stupendous cast and a huge production. We like to open our season with a flair. But this is big.”

Mark Delavan is the star baritone, singing the role of Iago, the scheming army officer who brings down Otello, the noble general whose flaw is jealously.

“Iago is just plain nasty,” says Delavan. He is ambitious and wants to ascend, and he’s going to do it the nastiest way possible.”

This giant stage production has an equally giant chorus. Sixty-eight adults singers and 24 children who have had to learn the music on their own and work overtime to perfect the Italian lyrics of what’s considered Verdi’s finest opera.

Chorus master Elizabeth Braden says the chorus fills in the gaps of story. If Shakespeare’s entire story was set to music, it would be a 10 hour opera, she believes. “They provide the excitement, they provide the horror when there’s a sword fight.”

Nick Vanmeter is one of the children. Even at 14, Nick is a veteran operatic performer. When he was 11, he performed in “La Boheme.” As for “Otello,” he says the singers are loud. “It’s this huge volume emanating throughout the space, it’s crazy.”

Delavan is internationally known for playing Verdi’s darkest characters. And as “Iago,” he plays the role smiling.

“You’ve got to believe that this is actually a good guy, somehow, and you kind of got to like him first,” says Delavan. “You want it to be so shocking in the end of the third and fourth act, that the darkness in his soul is a shock. That’s what makes it interesting.”

Then again, it is opera. Life doesn’t get more dramatic than that.

The performances are October 1, 3, 6, 10 and 15. For tickets visit www.operaphila.org.

Reported By: Pat Ciarrocchi, CBS 3