Plácido Domingo Surrounded By Yoncheva, Peretyatko, Yende At MET

Tenor Plácido Domingo backstage at the Metropolitan Opera following a performance of Verdi's Otello, a role he has sung over 225 times, with sopranos (left to right) Sonya Yoncheva, Olga Peretyatko and Pretty Yende.

A Change Of Color For The Venetian Moor In MET Opera "Otello"

The Moorish Chief by Eduard Charlemont (1878)

"At a recent dress rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera, there was something missing when the Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko sang the title role of Verdi’s Otello: the stage makeup with names like Indian Red and Otello Brown that opera companies have used for more than a century to darken pale singers playing the part. 'The Met breaks tradition, and I will be white,' Mr. Antonenko shrugged as he was powdered in his dressing room. It was an offhand way of phrasing a seismic shift. That leading opera houses have continued to use blackface into the early 21st century, long after minstrel shows and similar performances have been rejected as racist, may be more surprising to many people than that the practice is now being ended by the Met, after 124 years, for the new production of Otello that will open its 2015-16 season on Monday, Sept. 21. The change comes in a year when the massacre of nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, S.C., spurred a national discussion about racism and the power of symbols, and prompted South Carolina officials to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds after years of resistance. And it comes more than a generation after leading theater companies stopped 'blacking up' white actors to play Othello in Shakespeare’s play....Plácido Domingo, the pre-eminent Otello of the 1980s and ’90s, said in an interview that

Anna Netrebko And Yusif Eyvasov In Lebanon: The Full Concert

Diva Adorned: Kaftan and turban-clad (also covered in
Chopard jewels),  Anna Netrebko makes first appearance
in Lebanon. (Photo: Facebook)

On August 27, 2015, Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvasov took to the stage at the Beiteddine Art Festival in Lebanon to perform a concert full of arias and duets including works from Adriana Lecouvreur, Aida, Mefistofele, Otello, Madama Butterfly, La Traviata, Rusalka, La Bohème and more. Hear the full concert and see photos from the evening, after the jump. "The Beiteddine Festival is one of the leading festivals in the Middle East. It takes place in a large and magnificent 200-year old Palace in the Chouf Mountains, in Lebanon. The Palace is a jewel of Lebanese architecture with its many courtyards, monumental gates, elegant arcades and leveled galleries. Each year, in the months of July and August, the Festival presents outstanding performances by world famous stars and Lebanese artists. Concurrent with the performances, the Palace houses one or more international art exhibits. The Festival's first edition was launched in the summer of 1985 amidst the war. It came as an act of faith in Lebanon's cultural role and power of creativity, a call for normality amidst the chaos and madness of war. It was born and has grown in very difficult times and made it against all odds. As of 1987, when Nora Joumblat and an Executive Committee took over the organization of the Festival, it gradually gained regional and international recognition. Since 1997, a new step forward is recorded: the external courtyard of the Palace is fitted to host 5,000 persons. On the creative level, the Festival started producing its own performances, particularly Lebanese plays. The variety and the quality of the Festival's activities attract an ever-increasing audience (51,000 persons in 2003) in which the young generation is worthily represented The Festival is a non-profit organization." [Source]

How A Photograph Gives Renée Fleming A Full-Circle Moment

This image of Renée Fleming was shot by photographer Matthew Rolston for Vanity Fair magazine in the early 1990s. What is the significance of this photo today? Read all about it after the jump.

Hildegard Behrens Rare 1977 Verdi Duet With James King

Otello: "Già nella notte densa" by Giuseppe Verdi

Performer: Hildegard Behrens (Soprano), James King (Tenor)

Conductor: Heinz Wallberg

Orchestra/Ensemble: Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra

Period: Romantic

Written: 1887; Italy

Date of Recording: 03/27/1977

Venue: Live Bavarian Radio, Munich, Germany

Language: Italian

Renée Fleming Illumine la Scène de l’Opéra Bastille

Some stunning photos from the Andrei Serban production of Verdi's Otello taking place at l'Opéra National de Paris - Opéra Bastille. Head over to www.paperblog.fr for more high-resolution images. Conducted by Marco Armiliato, singers featured include Renée Fleming (Desdemona), Aleksandrs Antonenko (Otello), Lucio Gallo (Iago), Michael Fabiano (Cassio), Francisco Almanza (Roderigo) and Nona Javakhidze (Emilia).