[MD Expat in PA]

I couldn’t believe the casting they did for William Tell’s son - this was supposed to be a young Swiss boy and here they have a fat Afro-American with a big messy Afro hair-do - I didn’t realize this was supposed to be his son until much later.

Was this a singing part? In opera and in musicals I’m inclined to overlook the race and or the physical appearance / attractiveness or lack thereof of the performers if they are good or great singers / actors.

I mean, really. Luciano Pavarotti was not exactly a good looking guy considering some of his leading man roles. Some female opera singers were / are perhaps a bit too “rubenesque” or too old based on the character.

One of Beverly Sill’s last roles was that of Norina, a “youthful” widow in Don Pasquale when she was 51 years old.

My late mother was a classically trained singer and performed locally and on the radio in the central PA area and sometimes in Philly starting while still in her mid-teens. After some years of studying with him, her voice teacher told her that she had become too good, had outgrown him and beyond what he could offer and suggested a teacher in NYC. So she and her mother moved to N. NJ, moving in with her great uncle.

Just before she met my father, right after WWII, she was invited to audition for the Met but gave it all up because my dad swept her off her feet and they married 3 months after they met. Her favorite opera singer was Leontyne Price, not because she was Black but because my mother thought she had the most beautiful voice and near perfect breath control.

[RAldrich]

Yes, it was a singing part. The lady had a good voice. But they could have done something to make her look a little like the part she was portraying. Pavarotti, Price, etc. were made up to look like the part as much as possible and you could envisage them as the character they were singing. I didn’t feel anything out of kilter with them. There was respect for the opera. But this was really over the top.

I felt that the stage director was trying to make a political point, and was deliberately throwing the anomaly in the audience’s face.

[Covenantor]

...and OTH, Beverly Sills in “Thais” despite her singing was not well served by the diaphanous houri costume. The publicity regarding the see through pants did presage the arrival of the Kardashians as KMart knock-offs however. Who knew?