The role of a lifetime.

Desmond Richardson says that he had never dreamed of performing Othello. Growing up in Queens, he got his first dance experience doing hip-hop in the streets. If he had never seen Nureyev and Baryshnikov on PBS's Great Performances, he might never have set foot onstage. But watching dance, as well as performances of opera and classical music on television, changed his life.

"I told my mother I had to be a professional dancer," says Richardson as he sits cross-legged on a bench in the quiet lobby of American Ballet Theatre's offices. His rehearsals are over for the day, and he is glad for a moment's rest. Last December the company asked Richardson to become a principal dancer for its spring engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. Every day he has been learning a new ballet in preparation for the coming spring season.

The invitation was inspired, in part, by choreographer Lar Lubovitch who wanted Richardson for the title role in his new $2-million production, Othello. "There are only a few dancers in a choreographer's life-time with whom there is total physical and intellectual rapport," says Lubovitch. "That happened when I worked with Desmond when he was at the Alvin Ailey company." In a revolutionary move made for financial and artistic reasons, American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet are producing the work in partnership with the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. ABT has agreed not to perform Othello west of the Mississippi, while SFB will not perform it east of the river. "I see partnerships like this one as the wave of the future," says ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie. "We have many resources to share." SFB's Helgi Tomasson agrees: "With a coproduction like Othello, the financial risk is quite minimal. I hope other companies will follow suit."

Richardson's family couldn't afford dance classes, so he looked for an alternative. He auditioned for what was then called the High School of Performing Arts in New York City and won a place as a freshman. Right away, he plunged into ballet, modern, and jazz techniques. "Fortunately, my teachers were perfectionists," he explains. "They made me realize what I had to do to accomplish my goals." Richardson's lithe, compact body makes him an ideal dancer, but it is his intensity and breadth of mind that make him an exceptional performer. Within a year, Richardson had a scholarship to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Good as that was, he also wanted to explore the world, and he spent two summer at the Frankfurt Ballet in Germany.

In 1986 when Richardson turned seventeen. Alvin Ailey asked him to join his company. "I learned a whole slew of ballets there -- works by Jose Limon, John Butler. Elisa Monte, and many others," recalls Richardson. "Alvin was a great mentor. He made me aware of everything about the stage -- from costumes to lights." During his tenure with Ailey, Richardson worked with many top choreographers. Ulysses Dove in particular proved a tremendous influence and gave him extremely demanding parts in Episodes and Vespers. "Those sessions with Ulysses were some of the most concentrated I've ever experienced," says Richardson. "He cut right to the chase. No fussing about. He knew exactly what he wanted and had the ability to show you that in his own movements and words."

After eight years with the Ailey company, he auditioned for William Forsythe, director of the Frankfurt Ballet. "For something different," Richardson explains. At the time several projects grabbed his interest at once. For a while, he had been choreographing with Dwight Rhoden, another Ailey alumnus. Pleased with their ideas, they decided to form their own company, Complexions. "We also knew so many dancers who were looking for the challenge of doing new choreography," says Richardson.

Before Richardson went to Frankfurt, he and Rhoden presented the first Complexions concert at Symphony Space in New York City. They were able to enlist top dancers from ABT, Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Joffrey Ballet, and the Ailey for those performances. Diversity was emphasized from the start. "They use dancers from all walks of life," explains Aubrey Lynch II, a former Ailey member who performs with Complexions. "You have people used to pointe shoes dancing with people who are used to bare feet. It challenges you and teaches you new ways to think about dancing. They also let you collaborate. Whatever your special talent is, they seem to be able to draw it out."

The reaction to the company's debut couldn't have been better. "We had no idea the audience would respond so favorably," Richardson says. "We were stunned by their originality," says Barry Martin, director of Deja Vu Dance Theatre.

Richardson still wanted the experience of working in Europe, however, so Complexions went on hold while he went to Frankfurt. The trip was worth it. Richardson believes that he got an understanding of improvisational technique from Forsythe: "He forced me to find out where the movement inside me really comes from. He makes you see how you make decisions. There's a lot of passion inside his choreography."

When Richardson returned to New York City last summer, he eagerly resumed working with Rhoden at getting their company back onstage. Last January, Complexions made its debut at the Joyce Theater and created even more excitement than before. They drew the young crowd they were after, men and women who never knew they would love dance. But, once again, without sufficient money to keep going full-time, they have had to shut down for the time being.

Fortunately, Richardson,s new assignment at ABT requires most of his attention. Few young dancers win the prestige of being central to such an unusual collaboration as Othello. "I chose Othello as a plot because the characters can be universally understood," explains Lubovitch. "The crisis needs no explanation. I also like the idea of European and African cultures mingling, in the characters of Desdemona and Othello, against the backdrop of Venice."

The ballet brings together a top-flight supporting team. The score's composer, Elliot Goldenthal, writes music for orchestra, theater, opera, and film (his score for Neil Jordan's Michael Collins was nominated for an Oscar last year). "I love to do scores for dance," says Goldenthal, "I take as my ideal Stravinsky. The main thing you have to think about when you write for dance is the endurance of the dancers. You can't have a pas de deux go on for twenty minutes.

"What's distinctive about Othello as a character is that interesting things happen to him., he doesn't make things happen. But he's very much in love. Iago, on the other hand, makes everything happen -- he's a manipulator. So what I try to do is contrast them musically. I've written edgy, academic-style themes for Iago. Whereas, for good-natured Cassio, I have lighter material. I also contrast the romance between Othello and Desdemona and that between Iago and Emilia -- one so passionate; the other so calculating."

Goldenthal also tries to get across the locations, the period, and the weather. Seventeenth-century Venice conjures up certain musical ideas, as does North Africa, the place of Othello's birth, and Cyprus, where most of the play occurs. "I create environments," he explains. For instance, for the scene in which Emilia picks up Desdemona's handkerchief, he wrote a tarantella to represent the poisoning of Othello's mind.

Every evening, after Lubovitch and Goldenthal finish working with the dancers, they sit down together to talk about the problems that need solving. "Lar tells me the rhythms he's after and I try to work them out in my score," says Goldenthal. It's difficult, but very rewarding to see all the parts coming together."

Scenic designer George Tsypin brings to Othello his experience in many of the world's major opera houses, working with such stars as Jessye Norman and such directors as Peter Sellars. Tsypin decided to make a set that looks like a series of enormous glass plates to serve as a visual metaphor for the clash of European and African cultures: "I think of everything in Venice as water; the glass represents that and Desdemona's fragility. I wanted the whole stage to shimmer. On the glass plates I layered an African pattern."

Tsypin also instructed that all the furniture, including Desdemona's bed, look like glass. "It should give the strange feeling of everyone always being watched," he explains. "I'm trying to get across what it is that would make this black man so paranoid in this white European environment."

To complement the concept of transparency, designer Ann Hould-Ward's wedding costumes will be made of chiffon, worn over unitards of burnt orange, salmon pink, light blue, and burnt gold. The islanders of Cyprus will wear natural fabrics in a mesh weave that suggests fishing nets. Fiery silk scarves will be worn during the tarantella that represents Othello's growing rage. Purplish blues dominate the final scenes. "The bruised quality of Francis Bacon's paintings inspired me," she says.

To be the star of such a major production might overwhelm most young dancers. But Richardson has schooled himself well in taking risks. He knows his strengths. The Metropolitan Opera House debut will be only another step in his already spectacular career that started in front of a television set.