- Opera Critic’s Description of Rose Knox-Peebles’s Appearance
- Knox-Peebles’s Response to the Review: “All Natural”
- Past Instances of Insensitive Language in Film Reviews
The actress responded to the Financial Times critic Richard Fairman’s description of Rose Knox-Peebles’s stage character.
Rose Knox-Peebles informed an opera critic that she was not wearing any stage makeup during a performance after he described her appearance as “quite frightening.”
The 81-year-old performed at the Royal Opera House in London as Erda, the earth deity, in Das Rheingold.
Richard Fairman, writing for the Financial Times, described Knox-Peebles’s stage persona.
He wrote: “Erda, the earth goddess, is also on stage the entire evening, portrayed by Rose Knox-Peebles and made up to look quite frightening, which is probably par for the course if you’ve been around since the beginning of time.”
But in response to the 12 September review, Knox-Peebles said the look was “all naturally mine”.
She wrote in a letter to the newspaper, “Your reviewer informs readers that Erda, the earth goddess, was made up to appear “quite frightening.”
“This is untrue. I wore no makeup; the frightened appearance is all natural.”
Knox-Peebles is nude for the majority of the performance.
According to her website, she is also composing short stories and a new novel.
Variety apologized to actress Carey Mulligan in 2021 for using “insensitive language” in a review that appeared to query whether her appearance was appropriate for a role.
The publication later added an editor’s note to the top of its review of Mulligan’s award-winning film, Promising Young Woman.
It occurred after the actress stated that she had read the article and found it to be sexist. The article suggested that Margot Robbie would have been a more obvious candidate for the role.
