OTTAWA - Sally Dibblee has waited almost half her operatic career for the chance to sing Desdemona in Verdi's Otello.

So it's no wonder she isn't going to let a little controversy get in the way of the biggest performance of her life.

Based on Shakespeare's 1605 tragedy, the opera is about a Muslim general who kills his wife Desdemona in order to save his honour when he hears rumours his new bride is unfaithful.

"Otello is the ultimate tragedy," Dibblee says. "When he hears rumours that she might still be unfaithful, he becomes very jealous. Being an Islamic Moor, he is bound by his sense of honour and religious upbringing to kill her, even though they are very much in love.

"We're all very aware of what happens to women in Islamic states when they are unfaithful."

Controversies like this aren't new, of course. Movies, plays and occasionally even an opera will step on a raw nerve. In 1998, Toronto's Vietnamese community protested the opening night of Miss Saigon while Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice has recently been cut from the curriculum of some Canadian high schools for its apparent anti-Semitism.

"Isn't that what the theatre is supposed to do?" Dibblee, 41, asks rhetorically. "These are large-scale issues that we have to consider openly. What's the option if we don't?"

Making matters worse is the role of the dark-skinned Moor is usually played by a white singer in black makeup.

Dibblee says the casting of white tenor Mark Lundburg comes out of necessity because the opera calls for a heldentenor of which there are very few in the business.

"Unless you decide that you are not going to do it unless you are going to hire a black heldentonor when there are so few heldentenors in the world, then you are going to throw Otello into obscurity," she says in the opera's defence.

"Let's face it, Otello isn't a role that just anyone can do. Very few people can sing the role, so if you want to see Otello you just have to go along with it. That's just the way it is."

Dibblee first appeared with Opera Lyra in La Boheme in 2002. Desdemona is a big step up for the singer, who lives in Fredericton, N.B., with her two sons.

"She's a role you have to grow into," Dibblee says of Desdemona. "There are some roles you can't sing until you are mature enough. Desdemona is one of those roles."