By: Richard Huang
On July 14th, African American soprano Angel Blue declared her
withdrawal from Arena di Verona as a form of protest against the
use of blackface.
Blackface is the practice of wearing black makeup to impersonate a
black person, and it has a long history rooted in the time of
Shakespearean opera. But now it is regarded as highly offensive
because it is usually worn by a non-black actor.
Blue had planned to perform her debut in Verdi’s “La Traviata” at
the Arena di Verona in Italy, but after knowing that the festival has
blackface performance, she canceled her plan.
“As many of you know, Arena di Verona recently made the decision
to utilize blackface makeup in a recent production of Aida,” Blue
wrote on the Instagram post where she declared her withdrawal. “Let
me be perfectly clear: the use of blackface under any circumstances,
artistic or otherwise, is a deeply misguided practice based on archaic
theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society. It is
offensive, humiliating, and outright racist. Full stop.”
However, the spokesperson for Arena di Verona said that it is hard
to change its performing style because of its history. “…So as long as
we have a historical production, it is very hard to change them
because it means changing something that was designed that way,”
he said, commenting on the controversy of using the blackface.
“Somehow, the Arena di Verona is a theatrical museum. We don’t
have New Productions every year. We want our history to feel like it
is living.”
“When we discuss modern things, we have to remember that we are
using an old historical production. Next year we will have a new
production of ‘Aida.’ We should be judged on next year’s new
production. We understand this is a very important topic around the
world and we will change accordingly,” said the company.
Sources:
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