Otello: I Am Singing About Myself VAN Magazine Last year, in breaking the news about the Metropolitan Opera’s decision to drop racialized makeup in “Otello,” I’d joined many in the press in repeating the critical canard about the lack of Black tenors singing the role. Then Howard Haskin had emailed me a simple claim of existence: “the Black tenors are here.” Four of them shared with me their delight in the music, hopes for change, and identification with the role of a Black man struggling within a hostile community: “I am singing about myself,” Haskin told me. Back to Essays & Stories Photo credit: Clive Barda. Opera North’s production of Otello, Winter 2013