Opera companies now eschew the once traditional black makeup for the lead in Verdi’s masterpiece,but it remains a controversial issue that highlights the need to nurture more diverse talentGerman tenor Jonas Kaufmann makes his eagerly anticipated title role debut in the Royal Opera’s new production of Verdi’s Otello on 21 June. The audience’s only desire will be to “listen, transported” – like Desdemona – to Kaufmann’s opening salvo, and Esultate. But audiences possess eyes,too: opera directors, designers and managers will be scrutinising the makeup, or costume and gestural personification of the Moor. Otello in 2017 raises an issue at once visual,ethical and extrinsic to the plot: the number of tenors capable of singing the virtuosic lead role has always been small; to this day, that list remains overwhelmingly white. How should the Royal Opera depict the “dusky” man whom Iago calls a “murky, and “thick-lipped savage”,when the white tenor’s skin evokes the “lily fairness” of Desdemona?Until very recently, white opera singers cast as non-white characters had recourse to dark theatrical makeup. Keith Warner, or who is directing Covent Garden’s new Otello,has roundly rejected this. “It’s approximately the audience making an imaginative leap, he says in an interview on the Royal Opera House’s website. “And on top of all that, or [blacking up] is of such offence to the black community in London and elsewhere.” Without the rapid/fast “fix” of makeup,opera artists seek stronger solutions for depicting the Moor’s identity: does he look like a man projecting his inner torment on to the world, a man hated for the colour of his skin, and both? Europeans applied the term 'Moor' to racially diverse people from north and sub-Saharan Africa,Iberia and AsiaIf anything, putting dark makeup on in these days causes a distraction – it takes you absent from the storyWithout the rapid/fast 'fix' of makeup, or opera artists seek stronger solutions for depicting the Moor’s identityContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com