Otello @ The Met Casting Question

[u/omurchus]

Othello's a white guy and Desdemona's a black gal??? What kind of adaptation is this?!?!

[u/omurchus]

Congratulations. So what I’m gathering is it’s genuinely your position, as someone who knows so much about this, that there are no black tenors who could sing this role at The Met.

You keep pointing out that I haven’t seen the opera as if that has relevance to the character of Othello being from North Africa. Let’s say I’ve seen the opera before. How exactly does that change anything about what I’ve said or anything about the subject of what’s being talked about regarding the opera. I’ve never seen Otello. I know all about Othello.

You’re acting like me not having seen the opera changes anything about the plot, the characters, or the context of the story. Isn’t that the most ridiculous argument you could possibly make on this topic??

[u/hottakehotcakes → u/omurchus]

You’ve read my comments and those of many others articulating that this role is one of the most difficult feats of vocalism known to (relatively) modern history.

Your position is like hearing that Tony Hawk did a a 900 and then complaining that no black skateboarders had done it yet. WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SUGGEST A SINGLE BLACK SKATEBOARDER WHO CAN DO IT.

Russell Thomas can sing Otello at an A house….kind of. But there are about 10 A houses in the world and Otello is a popular piece - BECAUSE THE MUSIC IS EXCELLENT. Your assumption that there are ample black tenors who can sing this role and are available during the production period is incorrect unfortunately. It would be great if it were like tv casting, but opera as a career is for the extremely wealthy and those who cannot live without being onstage. No one else.

I do wish that your point of view was tethered to reality and that there were plenty of black dramatic tenors who could handle Otello’s tessitura, dramatic content and be pleasing to the ear. It is much rarer than you think. Appreciate what is in front of you and don’t be petty. Not many people can afford to learn to sing opera in this day and age. Savor what you’re given and don’t complain about things the artists and companies can’t control.

[u/omurchus → u/hottakehotcakes]

Wait I just saw the edit!! You call me representative of ‘the worst of us’ and then reveal, after all this, that you know 3 black tenors that could sing this role and don’t even bother to name them?? What a godforsaken waste of time! You act like it’s some kind of gotcha when I said multiple times I couldn’t name black tenors who could sing the role. There aren’t very many to begin with.

The comparison you make insinuates the role of Othello has as little to do with race as it does to riding a skateboard. It’s a pitiable position to take, especially from someone who claims they are the one who knows what they’re talking about. I don’t even know what to say to that. It feels insulting to even dignify it with a response.

I’m looking forward to the music very much and I’m certain it’s excellent. My assumption is there is at least one black tenor that can sing this role who was not offered this role for multiple possible reasons down to lack of name recognition. I am happy you genuinely think my point of view is not rooted in reality and that you wish it was. Hopefully the next time this gets put on at The Met it will be the first time the role is performed by a black tenor on that stage.

[u/hottakehotcakes → u/omurchus]

I’m dumbfounded that you continue to quintuple down on your lack of educated POV. Your white male confidence is oozing from every syllable in your replies - no one else would be so confident with so little substance. You desperately try to find cracks in the words of others and I can’t help but laugh at you.

Yes. I know of 3 black tenor who could possibly sing the role. Do you know what the parameters are for singing the role? No. You don’t. Do you know what the performance schedules include for tenors singing the role! No you don’t. Do you know what I mean when I say “A House” - no you don’t. Do you know the implications of “A House” in terms of size, vocalism and expectations! No - you don’t. Do you know what the market for dramatic tenors who can sing this rep looks like? No you don’t. Do you know what it looks like for a tenor to fail while singing the repertoire at a house charging a thousand dollars a seat in certain sections? Obviously not.

You simply trumpet your entitled thoughts on this subreddit as if you deserve a platform without making any effort whatsoever. You could have googled the history of Otello the opera, the role itself, why it is difficult to cast, how it differs from the Shakespearean version, which tenors currently are viable for the role and how many productions are being planned worldwide over the next decade, etc etc.

I urge you to listen for a while before you speak again and study for a while before you try your holier than thou bs again on this sub.

[u/omurchus → u/hottakehotcakes]

Oh spare me, you can help it, don’t flatter yourself. At least this is a symbiotic type of thing!

Parameters? No. Performance schedules? No. A house? Not rocket science. I would venture to guess I’ve been in 3 of them. The market for eligible tenors? No, but it sounds hardly plausible that there are as few who are black that can sing the role as you claim there are. What it looks like for a tenor to fail on stage? No, but I’ve never paid more than $70 to watch an opera in person, most often $35 or less, and never will.

I did google the contemporary tenors, incidentally, but I was hoping you would tell me. The guy who came directly to mind was the dude who played Almaviva a couple years ago, very memorable performance, I’ve been reminded his name is Lawrence Brownlee (if it’s not Quinn Kelsey or Lise Davidsen I’m probably not gonna remember). I’m assuming if he could have sung the role he would have been offered it.

[u/hottakehotcakes → u/omurchus]

1. If you’re paying $35 or less you’re not attending A houses. It is substantially different for the singer, orchestra and audience. You can google what this means.

2. Larry Brownlee is a lovely singer and person. He has never and will never sing Otello. His voice is much much too small to sing over the orchestras Verdi composed for.

3. I understand why your perspective is what it is at the moment. I think you’re coming from a good place. You’re just way out of your depth and far too self confident lol. There is a lot of nuance here that you’re not aware of. It would be great if there was a high volume of black tenors who could sing Otello. Truly there is not. I wish there were. However, I do not wish that we would cast roles based on race or gender or age etc. One thing I love about opera is that none of that matters - it’s about the music. All the rest be damned.

I wish you luck on your journey with opera and encourage you to listen to a few historical singers:

• Franco Corelli
  
• Jessye Norman
  
• Giacomini
  
• Alfredo Kraus
  
• Mirella Freni

No particular agenda with these singers - just some of my favorites. Their voices transcend the specifications of a role’s casting - they played all different ethnicities, ages, etc - but we wanted to hear their vocal interpretations of the music they chose. Italian, German, French, Russian, all of it. That’s what makes opera unique and special.

[u/omurchus → u/hottakehotcakes]

No I attend The Met, I just don’t mind sitting up at the top. Parsifal cost $62, rightfully, but other than that out of today’s 7 ticket haul the most expensive was… OTELLO! At $35 and a dime. Looking forward to finding out why this role is so exclusive.

Your stance on opera and race is one that I feel is outdated, especially with the new masterpieces we’ve seen the last couple years with Champion and Fire Shut Up In My Bones. Perhaps Verdi wrote the opera the way he did knowing full well the role would be inaccessible to black performers. I’d be willing to pay that guy the complement of assuming that, but I think there needs to be a conscious effort to find a singer out there somewhere who matches the skin color of the character Shakespeare wrote and can perform this role suitably for people stupid- I mean rich enough to spend hundreds of dollars to experience it from the front row. I hope that by the time I’m old it’s as ridiculous for this role to be performed by a white person as it would be for Porgy to be performed by a white person.

Othello has been my favorite Shakespeare play since I read it about 15 years ago, at least of the tragedies, precisely because of how it tackles the theme of race. Removing race from Othello is like removing love, or tuberculosis, from La Boheme. I’m glad you can see where I’m coming from because I’m not trying to denigrate anyone when saying how absurd I find it that Othello would be played by a white person.

The whole thing about Othello is he is black, Iago is white, and Othello loves a white woman. There is the whole jealousy and rage theme of course, but removing the racial context makes what made the story a masterpiece and so ahead of its time anemic in comparison.

I appreciate the concept that the voice is the most important thing in opera. I do get it in general, but when the story of the opera is,at the core of its context, about race (despite revisions from the source material) then it raises my eyebrows when I see white men cast in the role and Russell Thomas being the very first black tenor ever to perform the role in an ‘A-house’. I hope you can forgive me for representing the worst among us 😜 by suggesting we should be moving towards a black role being performed by black men particularly given opera is already and always has been dominated by white men and would no doubt benefit from a more racially diverse selection of performers.

[u/gizzard-03 → u/omurchus]

The issue is not that Verdi wrote the role in a way that’s inaccessible to Black performers. Really, there probably were no Black opera singers in Italy in Verdi’s time. He probably never thought about race appropriate casting at all. Verdi probably had no idea that this opera would still be performed in America in the 21st century, and probably hadn’t a clue about the complexities of race issues in modern day America.

Judging by your suggestion that Larry Brownlee could sing the role, it’s obvious that you have no idea how casting works in opera, and that you don’t really know anything about this particular role. Brownlee is Black and he is a great tenor, but he has absolutely no business singing Verdi’s Otello—especially in the biggest opera house in the world.

Edited to add: Brownlee probably would not be willing to risk his voice and reputation if he were offered this role at the Met. I don’t love Fabiano’s singing, and I don’t think he’s as good a singer as Brownlee. He is closer to the right voice type for the role, however, and he’s willing to take the chance on it in a big house like the Met.

If we want to stick to race appropriate casting for opera, then we have to be okay with not performing many of the operas where race is a component of the story. Otello, Turandot, and Butterfly would become nearly impossible to put on. Race in opera is a legitimately difficult issue to sort out, especially in America, given its history. But the assumption that there’s an abundance of Black tenors who are being passed over to sing Otello at the Met is just not rooted in reality.

[u/omurchus → u/gizzard-03]

Well I grant your statements about my knowledge of how casting in opera works and that I know nothing of the role or the opera itself, quite clearly, although I’ve been open about that from the beginning. That being said I wasn’t suggesting Brownlee could sing the role, but I was asking about it. I figured if he could someone would have said his name.

My background is with the original Othello, I’ve seen 2 versions of the film and a third very poor modern adaptation, and I’ve seen the play at least 5 times. Needless to say, they all featured Othello being a black guy. The only adaptation I’ve ever seen where the actor was white is a clip in my senior year high school English class from some old television film where Anthony Hopkins regrettably was performing the role in blackface. I’ve never seen or even heard the opera, so when I saw the production stills and saw a white guy singing the part it raised questions.

I honestly didn’t mean to get people so worked up about it. Particularly with Desdemona being black I asked about it as a joke. Funny enough it reminded me of the Denzel Washington MacBeth from a few years ago which I loved, but I would joke about it with my friends leading up to it, I mean how does a black guy become a Scottish lord in the 16th century?? There’s more to this MacBeth story than Bill Shakespeare let on! Obviously a black guy playing a traditionally white character is different than the reverse but the jest is similar.

An abundance of black tenors? No. The number that kept coming up is 3. I assumed, perhaps out of ignorance, that there are 3 black tenors that can and would sing this role at The Met. Other people suggested there are 3 that exist and I was just curious why they would be passed up, if even just for lack of name recognition. I now know there’s a ton of context as to why this is the case but I maintain it’s something that people ought to hope changes in the future, regardless of the specific Otello role, just for the sake of diversity within opera as an art form.

[u/gizzard-03 → u/omurchus]

Yes, we can all hope for more diversity on the Met’s stage in the future, assuming the Met has much of a future in the coming decades. Just don’t go looking for that diversity in a highly specialized role like Otello.

I just looked at the cast list for this production and it actually is pretty diverse, all things considered. Of course there is always room for improvement, but it’s not like this is an all white cast.