“I think some things should be cast with certain physical types, and the role of Otello is one of them.”
In Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, an opera based on the famed jazz musician’s life, the title character asks, “So if there is a God, why does the negro suffer? Is my prayer, my music lesser, smaller in God’s eyes?”
Leave it to the New York Times to present a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred debate on the explosive subject of race, with Anthony Tommasini and Ben Brantley boldly in agreement throughout.