VENICE (AFP) ― St Mark’s Square in Venice on Wednesday was the spectacular backdrop to a tragic opera in the first open-air performance in 43 years by the famous La Fenice theater ― a new must on the global culture calendar.

La Fenice is staging Italian maestro Giuseppe Verdi’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s “Othello, the Moor of Venice” ― with South Korea’s Chung Myung-whun conducting La Fenice’s orchestra and choir.

The performance, which coincides with the 200th anniversary of Verdi’s birth, is the first since 1970 and is to be held in the courtyard of the richly decorated Doge’s Palace that takes up one side of the square.

“Othello” was a popular opera in Venice in the 1960s.

U.S. tenor Gregory Kunde will play Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army, and Italian soprano Carmela Remigio will play his spouse Desdemona.