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Part of
Othello in European Culture
Edited by Elena Bandín Fuertes, Francesca Rayner and Laura Campillo Arnaiz
[Shakespeare in European Culture 3] 2022
► pp. 205–224

Chapter 11
The circumcised dog and the subtle whore

Race and gender in the musical adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello

| University of Bucharest

This chapter continues the research I have specialised in – the adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays into music and the analysis of the historical, social, religious, and cultural context of the librettos as paramount to the process of transmediation. The study compares Othello to Rossini’s and Verdi’s homonymous operas, Yutkevich’s 1956 Soviet film with music by Khachaturian, Fibich’s 1873 symphonic poem Othello, and Ledecký’s 2013 musical, Iago. From a thematic point of view, this study analyses a number of disquieting black-and-white dichotomies and analyses the authors’ approach to race and gender in the play and its musical adaptations. I conclude that the felicitous entwinement between dramatic warp and musical invention in these remediations is enriching, increasing the fame and popularity of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

Keywords: music, adaptation, remediation, transmediation, libretto, race, gender, dualism, imagology, rhetoric
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Rossini’s Otello
  • Verdi’s Otello
  • Fibich’s Othello
  • Khachaturian’s Otello
  • Ledecký’s Iago
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sec.3.11bot
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