'What's in a name?' asked Juliet. Desdemona, like the rose, might have been called anything else and retained the same meanings. But for us, as we are reminded at the beginning of Desdemona, the name has become synonymous with misery and doom. The speaker is Desdemona herself. How can this be? If we know anything else about her, it is that Othello murdered her within hours of the consummation of their marriage.

Well, in this production – a kind of play with music, though perhaps concert with words would be more accurate, directed by Peter Sellars with text by Toni Morrison and songs and lyrics by Malian singer–songwriter Rokia Traoré – Desdemona speaks to us from an imagined afterworld. She is joined by her companion Emilia, another victim of a murderous husband, as well as by Othello himself, still tormented by the grief and remorse that led to his suicide. Tina Benko is the conduit through which each of these characters addresses us directly (including Othello, though Benko's deployment of a strong African accent makes for somewhat uneasy listening, recalling in its apparent sincerity the play's history of blackface).