ROME (AP) – Soprano Angel Blue says she will not be performing at an opera in Italy this month because the blackface has been used in the staging of a different play this summer on the same stage.
The American singer posted a note on her Instagram page angeljoyblue saying that this month she will leave “La Traviata” in the Arena of Verona because recently the theater staged another opera by Giuseppe Verdi, “Aida”, which he had black-faced performers.
He criticized this use of “archaic” theatrical practices as “offensive, humiliating and utterly racist.”
Angel Blue, however, was still featured on the Arena website on Saturday as a singer in the role of Violetta in “La Traviata” on July 22 and 30.
The theater said it hoped Blue, who is black, would accept an invitation to meet with Arena officials in a “dialogue” on the issue. Arena, in a statement Friday, said it “had no motive or intention to offend and disturb anyone’s sensibilities.”
For decades, American civil rights organizations have for decades publicly condemned the black face, in which white interpreters blacken the face, as dehumanizing blacks by introducing and reinforcing racial stereotypes.
The Arena this summer has staged performances of “Aida” based on a 2002 staging of the opera classic by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019. This staging uses blackface.
“Dear friends, family and opera lovers,” the soprano’s Instagram post began. “I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that this summer I will not be singing La Traviata at the Arena di Verona as planned.”
Referring to Arena’s decision to use black-faced makeup in “Aida,” the singer wrote, “Let me make it perfectly clear: the use of the black face under any circumstances, artistic or not, it is a profoundly wrong practice based on archaic theatrical traditions that have no place in modern society. It is offensive, humiliating and totally racist. “
He wrote that he could not “associate with a good conscience in an institution that continues this practice.”
The theater’s statement said that “Angel Blue consciously committed to singing in the Arena” although the “features” of Zeffirelli’s 2002 staging were “well known.”
Still, the theater stressed its hope that its protest would eventually improve understanding between cultures and educate the Italian public.
“Each country has different roots, and its cultural and social structures have developed along different historical and cultural paths,” says the statement from the Arena Foundation of Verona. “Common convictions have often been reached only after years of dialogue and mutual understanding.”
Arena’s statement stressed the dialogue, “in order to understand the point of view of others, with respect to consciously assumed artistic obligations.”
“The contrast, the judgments, the labeling, the lack of dialogue only feed the culture of contrasts, which we totally reject,” the statement said, appealing for cooperation “to avoid divisions.”
It is not the first time that the use of black face makeup for a staging of “Aida” in Verona provokes the protest of a soprano. In 2019, opera singer Tamara Wilson, who is white, protested by darkening her face to sing the main character of an Ethiopian woman at the Arena opera.