Talking race and "blackface" in opera: the long version

Today's Washington Post features a conversation between five opera singers about race in opera, motivated by the Metropolitan Opera's decision to stop using "blackface" in its new production of Verdi's "Otello." The following is a less-abridged transcript of the same conversation, the gist of which was that the opera world has a ways to go in terms of racial awareness, but focusing on supposed "blackface" in "Otello" isn't necessarily all that helpful. Biographies of the five singers involved in...