Colorlines: As it heads into the 2015-2016 season, the Metropolitan Opera has announced that it will no longer use makeup to darken the face of the lead in its productions of “Otello.”
“Otello,” an opera based on Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice” which tells the story of a black general who falls to the treachery of a jealous soldier, debuted at The Met in 1891. It currently stars Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko in the title role, and he is the very first to not wear blackface.
4 comments:
I had no idea that blackface was still being used on stage. I thought it was banned from any performance even if it's an opera. It's appalling to see that it is still an issue to this day. I wrote a comment last week about this, but diversity should not be an issue in the theatre. Also, Shakespeare wrote the character Othello to be black so why is it an issue for Othello to be played by a black performer? Why does it have to be of a guy who is black faced. I would agree with the press and say it is wrong to keep african americans or an other race that isn't caucasian out of performing on stage. There are so many horrible reasons why that it wrong. However, I can't force the world to believe what they want to believe but this really shouldn't be a problem in our society anymore.
Seriously?! People have gone too far these days with all this racial sensitivity nonsense. It makes my blood boil that people have effectively bullied the Met into making a design change. I don't see how blackface is different from any other costuming or makeup choice at all! What's next, we can't dress men as women and vice versa because it the character MUST be played by the gender it was written for?! If the Met happened to choose somebody for the role of Otello who happens to be lighter skinned, and they thought he/she was the BEST for the role despite the skin tone mismatch, why should they be prevented from doing the best show they possibly can? And it's not like forcing the Met to not do blackface will suddenly change their casting decision! It's just going to reduce the realism of the show! I'm so sick of everybody complaining about everything and getting offended. I'm offended that everybody is offended all the time!
I think it's great that the Metropolitan Opera is finally doing away with black face. Black face is just historically racist, and I'm actually surprised the tradition has continued so long in opera after pretty much being condemned in both theater and film. While I'm completely against black face, I do have some issues with the particulars of this incident. for starters, why are they changing the story of Othello by cutting contextual lines about his race? For better or worse it is a huge plot point that Othello is a black man, he is explicitly referred to as "The Moor of Venice," so I think it's ridiculous that they are compromising the integrity of the story to avoid confusion and unsettling social context. As far as I'm concerned the Met should of been seeking out black opera singers for this role, giving the role to a man who fits the role in his own skin. While I think the Met is making the right decision in ending black face once and for all, I think it's being a bit too politically correct, which is also detrimental. As they strive so hard not to be offensive they are completely shutting down the conversation othello provokes about race by avoiding all confrontation, which I think is a huge short coming especially in our day and age.
It is really sad to think that Blackface is still being used and excused because it is being justified as an art form. It does show progress in our society on how people were quick to react to the fact that black face was going to be used by the Metropolitan Opera. The play Othello presents the interesting question that why don’t they have an African American actor play the role. I find it as a bad side effect of or heavily politically correct conscious society right now that they are going to omit the fact that Othello’s character is Black and cutting the first scene that presents the stereotypes that help to give context to the audience about the character all to not have to recast the role. It really deprives the audience from getting an understanding of how the world of the play views the character Othello. Instead by changing the character Othello to be “ethnic” it changes the whole nature of the story and stops a dialogue. I understand we are still in the middle of the Black Lives Matter Movement and people want to be more conscious when bringing up race, but I feel like at this point it is being taken too much of an extreme. No one producing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice would dare makes Shylock not a Jew unless just to not offend people.
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