Racism row erupts after director of Othello opera in Venice refuses to use ‘blackface’ on star

28 November 2024, 12:38 | Updated: 29 November 2024, 00:54

A leading Italian tenor has hit out at a Venice opera in a 'blackface' row after the director chose to portray his character in Shakespeares's Othello as white.

The 'Otello' production, taking place at La Fenice, opened on Saturday, casting Francesco Meli in the starring role.

However, a complaint was raised about director Fabio Ceresa after Meli, 44, claimed that Ceresa refused to darken his features with makeup.

The lead told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale that the colour of Otello’s skin had a significant meaning in the production.

“The idea is that the white Iago is the evil one who provokes Otello, leading him to commit a crime," he said.

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Meli made his debut at La Scala at 23-years-old and has performed in many prestigious opera houses across the globe.

He told The Times: “On the one side was the director’s desire to actualise the story, on the other my more philological approach.

"Which holds that in losing the racial element you also lose Verdi’s strong anti-racist message, which is important in this particular moment in European history.”

Blackface shows made their first appearance in New York in the 1830s, with white performers pretended to be enslaved Africans using burnt cork or shoe polish to blacken their faces.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture have said the performances are “characterised blacks as lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, and prone to thievery and cowardice.”

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In Italy, this practise has never been common, rarely shown on screen.

A protest by Angel Blue, an American soprano, took place in 2022 after seeing a white singer, Anna Netbroko, doing blackface in one of Franco Zeffirelli's production of Aida.

Meli said “I should point out that in Italy we have had to study and then explain the phenomenon of blackface, first to ourselves and then to others,

'because it never existed, so ordinary people don’t know what it is,” he said. “It’s important for me that we respect all the sensibilities of the public.”

South Korean conductor Kyung-whun Chung reviewed Otello saying “No blackfacing (these are not the times).”

Societal controversies are not new to the Opera scene, issue's dating back to the 1817 opera La Cenerentola, based on the fairytale Cinderella.

In this production, the glass slipper had to be replaced for a bracelet as a bare foot was seen as too sexual.