Does anyone know who's covering Otello? Not that I'm planning to poison Dennis O'Neill. It's just I'm struggling to imagine who in the company it could possibly be; I can only think of one name as even an outside possibility. Any clues?
On a related note, I was browsing the photos at Jonathan Summers' website and something finally dawned on me which I should have realised from the programme cover — when this production premiered in 2003, Otello (Frank Porretta) was in blackface. Now he isn't. I wonder why.
He does have dark make-up on. It's just hard to see.
Posted by: Steve | Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at 10:17 AM
Very hard to see. I think all it does is emphasis Iago's pallor.
Posted by: Sarah | Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at 11:22 AM
As for covers, sometimes it's a chorus member, sometimes it's someone who has been singing overseas or elsewhere in OZ or NZ. So for instance the very wonderful Lisa Harper Brown is covering Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.
Posted by: Travelling Mezzo | Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at 11:38 PM