I’ve never seen an operatic Otello who carried makeup technique to that summit, and with the age of High Verisimilitude now not only past but in social disgrace, probably won’t. It has usually been enough to establish definition of the more general kind (sometimes, I grant, crudely enough done to sink to minstrel-show level), and leave the rest to the performer’s presence, temperament, acting skills, and, above all, his voice and command of dramatic inflection. In the cases of (to cite those of my experience with enough of these attributes to fulfill the role) Mario del Monaco, James McCracken, and Jon Vickers, this combination worked out well enough. In opera, great singingacting can nearly always transcend. But without the “person of color” component, the task is harder. If actors can’t pretend to be someone else, then theatre, sung or spoken, is reduced to the hosting of personal appearances. We don’t need more of those.

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FOLLOW-UP: Among the many comments entered at slippeddisc.com in the wake of educated guesses over miking at the the Met (see “Trittico: WHAT?”, Dec. 12, 2018), one about possible conversation emanating from the lighting booth intrigued me. I have taken careful note of distances and angles from Balcony seats at three recent performances, and conclude that this cannot have been a factor. The booth is at the very top of the house, over the Family Circle, and the query of “What?” came from no more than three or four rows behind me and to the left. It definitely originated in the audience.

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NEXT TIME, Friday, Feb. 1: Adriana. Also coming soon: Pelléas et Mélisande. And lying in wait: all of Chaliapin—which is a lot.

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