{"id":232617,"date":"2019-09-27T03:05:49","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T07:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=232617"},"modified":"2019-09-27T03:05:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T07:05:49","slug":"domingo-focus-shifts-to-california-the-last-of-his-us-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/09\/27\/domingo-focus-shifts-to-california-the-last-of-his-us-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Domingo focus shifts to California, the last of his US shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the Metropolitan Opera’s bombshell announcement that Placido Domingo will not take the Met stage this week \u2014\u00a0and possibly ever again \u2014\u00a0the legendary singer’s only scheduled U.S. appearances are set for next year in California, including at the LA Opera, where he is general director and under investigation for sexual misconduct.(File Photo<\/a>: Universidad Europea de Madrid\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014\u00a0With the Metropolitan Opera’s bombshell announcement that Placido Domingo will not take the Met stage this week \u2014\u00a0and possibly ever again \u2014\u00a0the legendary singer’s only scheduled U.S. appearances are set for next year in California, including at the LA Opera, where he is general director and under investigation for sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

Three other companies \u2014\u00a0including the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Opera and Dallas Opera \u2014\u00a0already had removed Domingo from upcoming performances in the wake of multiple sexual harassment allegations published by The Associated Press . The Met’s decision came on the eve of Wednesday’s sold-out season opener of “Macbeth,”\u00a0amid rising tensions inside the venerable institution and threats of protests planned for outside.<\/p>\n

In a brief, carefully worded announcement Tuesday , the Met indicated that it had asked the famed tenor to step down, saying, “Placido Domingo has agreed to withdraw from all future performances at the Met, effective immediately.”\u00a0In his own statement to Met staff, Domingo said that at the age of 78 he was happy to have sung the title role of “Macbeth”\u00a0in the dress rehearsal, “which I consider my last performance on the Met stage.”<\/p>\n

Domingo said in Tuesday’s statement, “I strongly dispute recent allegations made about me,”\u00a0without providing any specifics.<\/p>\n

For years, Domingo has been the opera world’s most bankable star, with the celebrity power to fill seats in an era of dwindling ticket sales. Over time, he has also widened his portfolio, becoming a prolific conductor and powerful administrator as the general director of two major American companies, first at Washington Opera and later at LA Opera, where he has held the post since 2003.<\/p>\n

In two reports published Aug. 13 and Sept. 5 , the AP spoke to multiple women who said Domingo tried to pressure them into sexual relationships and sometimes punished them professionally if they rejected him. All said they feared reporting him because of his power to make or break their careers, and that his behaviour was an open secret in the opera world.<\/p>\n

In the first report, nine women detailed accusations of sexual harassment, unwanted kisses, backstage touching and other inappropriate behaviour that in some instances prompted women to hide from him in dressing rooms and ask male colleagues to walk them to their cars. The second report included an account by soprano Angela Turner Wilson, who said Domingo pursued her for weeks at Washington Opera and unexpectedly reached his hand into her robe and forcefully grabbed her bare breast when they were getting their makeup done before a performance.<\/p>\n

Wilson said she felt “relieved”\u00a0by the Met’s action but also hoped that shining a light on Domingo’s behaviour would lead to wider change in the industry.<\/p>\n

“It is immensely difficult but absolutely necessary to implement changes in policy and conduct for the safety of future generations of opera singers, all people currently working in opera, and the ultimate survival of our beloved art form,”\u00a0Wilson said in a statement to AP.<\/p>\n

The LA Opera did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on the progress of its investigation, which it announced over a month ago. Domingo also is being investigated by the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union representing many opera employees, which told AP earlier this week it hopes to conclude its investigation in about two months.<\/p>\n

Domingo, who helped found the LA Opera in the 1980s, is scheduled to headline six performances of “Roberto Devereux”\u00a0in February and March. He is also scheduled to appear in February at the Musco Center for the Arts in Orange County, California.<\/p>\n

During its inquiry, LA Opera has removed Domingo from day-to-day operations as general director. It has not given an expected timeframe for the investigation, which is being led by Debra Wong Yang, a former U.S. attorney and Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, now a partner at the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.<\/p>\n

For at least the rest of the year, Domingo’s career will be centred in Europe, where the accusations of harassment have not hurt him professionally.<\/p>\n

He was greeted with ovations at concerts this August in Austria, shortly after the accusations emerged.<\/p>\n

None of Domingo’s upcoming performances in Europe have been cancelled; he has a busy fall lineup of operas and concerts in Switzerland, Russia, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014\u00a0With the Metropolitan Opera’s bombshell announcement that Placido Domingo will not take the Met stage this week \u2014\u00a0and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":232121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","mauthors-jocelyn-gecker","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232619,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232617\/revisions\/232619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}