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Desdemona (/ ˌ d ɛ z d ə ˈ m oʊ n ə /) is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish Venetian military prodigy.
Iago persuades Othello that Desdemona and Cassio have "the act of shame a thousand times committed"; [163] Emilia says Iago "hath a hundred times" [164] asked her to steal the handkerchief; Bianca complains Cassio has been away from her "a week"; [165] news of the Turkish defeat needs time to reach Venice then Lodovico needs time to reach ...
Otello (Italian pronunciation:) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello.It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887.
Othello, a General in the Venetian army, promotes a young officer, Michael Cassio, enraging Iago—the General's ensign—who expected the post himself. Outwardly loyal to Othello and his recently married wife, Desdemona, Iago proceeds to cause dissension within Othello's camp (for instance, tuning Othello's new father-in-law against him, and causing Cassio to fight another officer).
Othello was also frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. In the past, Othello would often have been portrayed by a white actor in theatrical makeup. Black American actor Paul Robeson played the role from 1930 to 1959. Recent actors who chose to "blacken up" include Laurence Olivier (1965) and Orson Welles.
Bianca is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's Othello (c. 1601–1604). She is Cassio's jealous lover. Despite her brief appearance on stage, Bianca plays a significant role in the progress of Iago's scheme to make Othello believe that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio.
Maria Malibran as Desdemona by Henri Decaisne, 1830. The first performance took place at the Teatro del Fondo in Naples on 4 December 1816. It was first performed in Paris on 5 June 1821 at the Théâtre Italien (with Manuel García as Otello and Giuditta Pasta as Desdemona), [5] in London on 16 May 1822 at the King's Theatre, and in New York on 7 February 1826 at the Park Theatre.
Seeing his wife's emotional distress, Othello ignores alternative, innocent explanations—like the possibility that she did not love another—and kills her, as his preconceptions biased his observation and, therefore, his judgments. Othello made the mistake of assuming that he understood the source of Desdemona's anguish.