In addition to its appearance in the
theatre, the character of Othello from the tragic play by
William Shakespeare has appeared in many examples in art and culture since being authored by Shakespeare in the early 16th century.
In the visual arts
The literary character of Othello and the plot of the play by Shakespeare has been a recurrent theme in painting for several centuries. Selected examples include The Plot depicting Othello and Iago, which was painted in oil by
Solomon Alexander Hart in 1855. He also painted a watercolour version, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Othello was a series of 60 paintings executed in 1985 by
Nabil Kanso. It was published in 1996 by NEV Editions.
In 2018, the African American conceptual artist
Fred Wilson created the work I saw Othello's visage in his mind in
Murano glass and wood, inspired by a line of
Desdemona's in Act One of the tragedy.[1]
Otello, a four-act opera with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsa and music by
Gioachino Rossini was first performed at the
Teatro del Fondo,
Naples, on 4 December 1816. In contrast to Shakespeare's version, di Salsa provided an alternative happy ending to the work, a common practice with drama and opera at one time.
Giuseppe Verdi and
Arrigo Boito wrote Otello. Verdi and his librettist dispensed with the first act of the play.
Franco Zeffirelli's 1986 film version of
Verdi's opera starring
Plácido Domingo as Othello was nominated for the
BAFTA for foreign language film.[citation needed] However, it did not win the award. According to the
Kennedy Center's biographical note on Domingo, Laurence Olivier saw Domingo in Otello and, in a mock-furious voice, told Franco Zeffirelli: "You realise that Domingo plays Othello as well as I do, and he has that voice!"[2]
In ballet
Mexican choreographer
José Limón created a 20-minute, four character ballet called The Moor's Pavane to the music of
Henry Purcell in 1949. It is a standard in dance companies around the world and notable interpreters of the Moor include
Rudolf Nureyev.
The ballet Othello was choreographed by
John Neumeier to music by Arvo Pärt, Alfred Schnittke, Naná Vasconcelos et al. and was premiered by the Hamburg Ballet in Hamburg on 27 January 1985, with
Gamal Gouda as Othello,
Gigi Hyatt as Desdemona, and
Max Midinet as Iago. The work remains in the repertoire of the
Hamburg Ballet, seeing its 100th performance in 2008.
Another Othello ballet, by Iranian Armenian composer
Loris Tjeknavorian, was commissioned by the
Northern Ballet company and was shown in London in 1985. The musical score, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was recorded by EMI.
The American actor
James Earl Jones performs Othello's Act I, scene III monologue from
ShakespeareOthello at the
White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on 12 May 2009.
Between 1948 and 1952,
Orson Welles directed The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952), produced as a black-and-white
film noir.[4] Rather than focusing on racial disparity, the film plays on a difference between Desdemona and Othello in age, size and personal attractiveness. The film noir colouring of the picture minimised any commentary on Othello's blackness, to the point that the critic
F. R. Leavis wrote that the film made no reference to Othello's colour.[4]
The
first major screen production casting a black actor as Othello would not come until 1995 with
Laurence Fishburne opposite
Kenneth Branagh's Iago. It was made during the
O. J. Simpson trial and commentators such as Cartmell draw parallels between the two
whodunit murder stories, and wondered if the film's release was not a little to do with the publicity surrounding Simpson's drama.[4] A modernised, loose retelling,
O, completed in 1999 and released in 2001, featured African-American actor
Mekhi Phifer in the lead role, which was renamed from "Othello" to "Odin James" or "O. J.", with the story set in an American high school and revolving around sports rather than warfare.
Malayalam film Kaliyattam is an adapted version of Othello against the backdrop of the
HinduTheyyam performance. In 1998,
Suresh Gopi received the National Film Award for Best Actor, and
Jayaraj the award for Best Director for their work on the film.
1947 Othello forms the backdrop for the 1947
film noirA Double Life in which actor Anthony Johns (
Ronald Colman) becomes so immersed in the production, that he takes on the Moor's murderous jealousy in his real life.
2002 Eloise a modern update, set in Sydney, Australia.
2004 Stage Beauty, a romantic period drama, set in the 17th century, on the theme of male and female actors playing women's roles – with the role of Desdemona as the example.
2008 Othello, The Tragedy of The Moor. A two-hour television adaptation starring
Carlo Rota in the title role. Director
Zaib Shaikh maintains the theatrical feel of the play, while shooting in a studio-controlled environment. Also starring
Matthew Deslippe as Iago,
Christine Horne as Desdemona,
Graham Abbey as Cassio. The adaptation was co-written by Zaib Shaikh and
Matthew Edison.[13]
2011– An Indian daily soap named "
Gunahon ka Devta" aired on
Imagine TV was loosely based on Shakespeare's famed Othello
2022 Tulsa King starring
Sylvester Stalone visually features the book and his character is said to have read it during his incarceration.[14]
In music
In 1891-2, the Bohemian/Czech composer
Antonin Dvořák composed the overture 'Othello', Op 93 (cf
Othello)
In 1914, the Ukrainian-born
Sergei Bortkiewicz composed his orchestral Symphonic poem after 'Othello', Op 19.
In 1963, the Soviet composer
Vladimir Yurovsky finished his tragic Symphonic poem for a narrator, choir and orchestra after 'Othello', Op. 58.
In 1987, Australian singer
Paul Kelly wrote a song called "Desdemona", a reference to Othello's love interest.
Chicago-based hip-hop group
Q Brothers created a modern adaptation with Othello being a record producer called "Othello: The Remix."
In 2014 R&B artist
SZA referenced characters from Othello and Shakespeare himself on her song "Childs Play": "Come Desdemona / Othello and tragedies / Shakespearean sorrows".[15]
In 2016 R&B artist
Frank Ocean referenced Othello in his song Nikes "Must be on that white like Othello".[16]
In 2017 singer-songwriter
Harry Styles possibly referenced Act III Scene III in his song "Sweet Creature."[18]
Graphic novels
Othello, an adaptation by
Oscar Zárate, Oval Projects Ltd (1985). It was reprinted in 2005 by Can of Worms Press and includes the complete text of the play.
In January 2009, a
manga adaptation was published in the United Kingdom, with art by Ryuta Osada. It is part of the Manga Shakespeare series by
Richard Appignanesi, and is set in Venice in carnival season.[19]
Fiction
Christopher Moore combines Othello and The Merchant of Venice in his 2014 comic novel The Serpent of Venice, in which he makes Portia (from The Merchant of Venice) and Desdemona (from Othello) sisters. All of the characters come from those two plays with the exception of Pocket, the Fool, who comes from Moore's earlier novel based on King Lear.
The supporting character
Iago in
Disney franchise
Aladdin is named after the antagonist of the play, Iago. I, Iago by
Nicole Galland depicts Iago, as the protagonist and explores his potential motivations and history.
The plot of the
Portuguese language novel Dom Casmurro by the
Brazilian author
Machado de Assis, a translator of Othello into Portuguese, is based upon the play. It is generally considered one of the great novels of Brazilian literature.
In 2017, Hogarth (a division of Penguin Random House company) published, as part of the Shakespeare Project, a novel by Tracy Chevalier, New Boy. The characters from Othello are transposed in a Washington D.C. school where eleven-year-old boys and girls re-enact the shakespearian tragedy but in the 1970s.
Mustafa Said, the
Sudanese central figure of
Tayeb Salih's Arabic language novel
Season of Migration to the North (
1966) refers to himself as Othello and kills his English wife with Jean Morris with a knife out of jealousy.
Other
Othello Cake, Danish cake with a
Macaron base, cream and chocolate glaze. The cake is named after the play, with the white cream and dark chocolate signifying the relationship between Desdemona and Othello.[20]