More artists come out for Placido Domingo
mainWhile his accusers remain anonymous and the AP journalist behind the story has gone silent, leading colleagues are coming out to support the beleaguered Domingo, under the #Metoo spotlight.
Mezzo-soprano Violeta Urmana: ‘I’ve been working with Maestro Placido Domingo for over 20 years. He’s a phenomenal artist, the kindest and most correct person.’
US soprano Ana Maria Martinez: ‘Always, and in particular in this day and age, women’s voices, all voices deserve and need to be heard and given the platform to express their truth. I have known Maestro Plácido Domingo and have worked with him for over 23 years. He has always been a gentleman and treated me with dignity and respect.’
Mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza (left): ‘No one has the right to judge anyone without knowning what has happened, least of all in public. I am very sorry for Placido because I love him and he is my friend.’
Mezzo-soprano Annalisa Stroppa: ‘I had the pleasure and honor of working with the great master Placido Domingo and i wish to express all my solidarity with him. I met a wonderful person: serious, kind, respectful, distinguished, brilliant and humble.’
Russian soprano Irina Lungu: ‘I met Placido Domingo in 2004 at the beginning of my career, winning one of the awards at the Operalia competition. In these past 15 years I have had the luck to work with him on several occasions. As a younger artist, I have always received from him nothing but support, kindness and inspiration for my career, lessons of professionalism, style and total dedication to our art. Domingo has always been for me a great example of courtesy, sensitivity and correctness.’
Former Teatro Real director Antonio Moral: ‘I have known Placido Domingo for more than 30 years and have had the great fortune of collaborating very closely with him during my five years as artistic director of the Teatro Real de Madrid, more than eight in Operalia and many others in the historic recording project of zarzuelas of the Cajamadrid Foundation and I must say that I do not believe the accusation of harassment of which he is being victim these days. I think that they want to knock down the incredible career of a unique singer in history and, since he does not retire of his own accord, they want to knock him off the stage in this way as unbelievable as demonstrable. And even more for some alleged events that occurred more than 30 years ago!’
Romanian soprano Marina Krilovici: ‘I’ve known Placido Domingo more than 40 years when we started our careers in Hamburg. I know his family very well. He has enormous respect and love for his wife Marta. Every performance with him was something very special for me. His voice, talent, musicality and generosity on stage was the same in life. A wonderful friend and person and a very very successful singer. I admire his rise to the top. He is a fantastic singer, conductor, general director and creator of a very important singing competition which built a lot of great careers. I support with all my heart the integrity of this great artist.’
Mexican tenor Javier Camarena: ‘Maestro Domingo: You know how much I appreciate and admire you and my eternal gratitude for your kindness and your always beautiful words regarding my work. I pray to God for the peace in your heart, may his arms embrace and protect your family in this moments of storm.
“Truth will make you free” (John 8-31)
I hope the truth I see in your soul, shines above all.
I’m with you.’
See also: Music world splits on Domingo
Yes! But let’s be objective and realize there are hundreds of artists who have worked with Mr. Domingo and are not coming out for him, let’s face it…
and hundreds not coming out against him. whats your point? He has won. Even his accuser said she didn’t suffer in her career.
My point is, let’s let the investigation and not judge in favor or against someone. We simply don’t know…
In other words throw him to the wolves
Investigation of what? Flirting? Some inappropriate comments? Do we all need complete nursemaiding?
In which case stop making public comments.
His accuser is now selling real estate and teaching voice. Until yesterday on Linked in she advertised herself as a former opera singer who sang in many famous opera houses and with many famous stars including Placido Domingo.
There are pictures of her and her little daughter and Domingo laughing and having a good time.
She has taken down her profile but you can still see the screenshot on Facebook.
This is hypocrisy for you. She was preparing to stab him and ruin him and at the same time used his name for self promotion.
What does it say about her credibility?
Only Truth will win.
LA Opera’s investigation will be the one which the world watches. Everything else is pure speculation.
None of us is judge.
Nonsense, this “investigation” not done by authorities, will only rest on claims done by a couple of (ex-)singers. If there are crimes committed, police should be informed and they should perform a proper investigation, not the board of the LA Opera.
“His accuser?” That was one. There are eight others. (That we know of.)
Oh he most certainly has not, and will not win this.
have nor doubts Queen Sofia would also join that list ( if you chose to post that picture of madame Berganza) like wise many of European Royals …..
Ok, but… still the same, Operalia artists and artists working with the same agency… how can people come out with these statements, when Domingo did not infirm anything and moreover he has gone silent, no official statement other the one in the AP article!!!?!!!
If something will be later proven in the future, all these artists have compromised themselves. What a strange world we live in!
If he was a gentleman and women went out with him because they agreed and enjoyed it, this does not mean all women had the same experience!
Domingo!
Domingo!
Domingo!
My Domingo!
Your Domingo!
His Domingo!
Her Domingo!
Their Domingo!
Our Domingo!
Domingo maybe!
Domingo sometimes!
Domingo always!
Domingo somewhere!
Domingo everywhere!
Domingo anyhow!
Domingo somehow!
Domingo all the same!
Domingo upside!
Domingo downside!
Domingo east!
Domingo west!
Domingo north!
Domingo south!
Domingo hot!
Domingo cold!
Domingo tepid!
Domingo!
Domingo!
Domingo!
Yes, ‘Domingo’, and then? Monday!
Indeed. But first, a placid Sunday.
My section leader at LA Opera once wondered out loud if Placido Domingo had an alter ego named Inquieto Lunes …
boring as always
Sing it again, Placido!
“Wie soll ich Gnade finden,
wie büssen meine Schuld?
Mein Heil sah ich entschwinden,
mich flieht des Himmels Huld.
Doch will ich büssend wallen,
zerschlagen meine Brust,
im Staube niederfallen –
Zerknirschung sei mir Lust.
O, dass nur er versöhnet,
der Engel meiner Not,
der sich, so frech verhöhnet,
zum Opfer doch mir bot!”
So obvious that Santo Domingo’s agency is pressuring artists it also represents to put out these tepid and loopy statements of support.
But NL’s prior observation is still the most relevant:
Where are his Big Gun friends who knew him best and longest from that era when the alleged acts took place?
Mehta, Barenboim, Muti, Levine, Carreras…
In today’s political environment, especially US, I’m actually surprised that any one dare to speak out for him
There are still a few people of honor.
Exactly! It doesn’t help his being Hispanic either in the present political climate.
An expression of support from James Levine would certainly NOT be helpful to anyone at this point.
Besides there’s still the point: That he didn’t harass every women he met, doesn’t prove that he never harassed one.
Not to mention that getting contemporary active singers to refute allegations going back to the 1980s is…not relevant.
And there is still the point: no harassment has been proven yet and the unanswered question why wait thirty years?
That is true, but… Testimony of character witnesses is a legitimate part of court proceedings (at least in this country) and there is no reason it should be ignored in the “court” of public opinion either.
But there are no court proceedings, that’s the whole point. If crimes were committed, police should be informed, not the LA Opera.
Dutoit … LOL
“The accusations go back years – so why has the opera world rallied round Plácido Domingo?”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/15/why-has-the-opera-world-rallied-round-placido-domingo
Honestly, are you shocked? Stop clutching your pearls.
This is the problem with this kind of stuff:
The nature of ‘sex crimes’ is that they barely leave any evidence and also that the perpetrators (if the accused really is one) select socio-politically and emotionally vulnerable targets and abuse them behind closed doors.
Then, while the abusers abuse behind closed doors, at the same time they may put on a benevolent ‘altruistic face’ to other colleuges and the public so that they can downgrade any accusations for the accused and even lie to themselves that they are good people.
So which side am I to believe in this case?
I’m not sure… I’m leaning towards???
The accusers here gain nothing and face backlash and feared retribution. They aren’t seeking damages. Their stories are corroborated and all similar. What are the odds they just happened to find 9+ “attention seekers”?
The allegations are true. I’m ashamed of those rallying behind him. I’ve worked with PD, I like him and had lunch with him last year. But *this is who he is and there is no denying it.*
They didn’t find the 9 attention seekers at the same time and they could copy the accusations, most of which are in fact not severe enough to count as crime in a Court of Law. “He didn’t touch me, but he lowered his voice and said to me…” Pulease.
Did “sex crimes” occur? The collapsing of all of these categories is alarming.
If people are going to make accusations designed to ruin someone’s life and career, the “journalist” and the alleged sources owe the both the accused and the public a duty to come forth openly, not hide behind anonymity and claims of a journalistic duty to protect sources (a canard designed to shield the accusers and journalist from the responsibility for, and consequences of, their claims).
The journalist is not anonymous. All journalists use anonymous sources — and have a bounden ethical duty to check the material supplied by them even harder than they do anything else, which in any publication I have worked for, and I assume the AP, is already rigorous.
As part of the content of charges in this case and many like it is that the sexual overtures often contain implicit or explicit comments about the impact on one’s career, it is hardly surprising if many women do not wish to identify themselves to the wide world. They do identify themselves to the journalist. And any journalist bringing in a story like this will be examined thoroughly by his/her superiors, and by a legal team.
This sort of material is checked before publication — libel suits ARE damaging, whatever rags like the National Inquirer put about in the past. AP has a stellar reputation. You can be sure that the AP, staffed at every level by people whose business is to suspect what they are told and to check, is sure that what they have published is true. I’ll bet they did a better job than LA Opera will do.
This is so true. I would like the journalist who wrote the article, Jocelyn Gecker, to come forward and explain herself. And the women should be named if they are to be taken seriously.
Nobody cares about what you would like and “they” don’t owe you a personal explanation.
In any case, laugh-out-loud that YOU think you are entitled to anonymity but “they” are not.
I’m not accusing anyone of sexual harassment.
simply untrue. the sources who brought Richard Nixon down were anonymous but known to the journalists. and here as well as there other sources stepped forward to corroborate the allegations. this is not a comparison between Domingo and Nixon but it is a defense of investigative journalism by a reputable writers/editors/publications such as Associated Press.
When accusations are made and are not sustantiated or prove to be false, they should go after the accusers.
Designed to ruin someone’s life… do you think the women asked to be harassed in the workplace?Don’t you think anonymity provides safety they were never allowed as victims of that harassment? The consequences of their claims will reside, and exactly where they should. signed, an eyewitness
You don’t know anything about journalism. It should be more than obvious that anonymity prevents attribution for the accusers. You should know very well that opera singing is a difficult career path, and nobody wants to lose their job.
Their hypocrisy is epic and monumental.
The consequences of harassing women multiple times with multiple women will be epic and monumental. Time for this to come out.
As it should be. If proven guilty of heinous conduct, then it is time for repercussions, not now.
Former director of Madrid Teatro Real is even worst with woman than Placido Domingo.
Make me laugh read his stament supporting Domingo.
In the Spanish news of this hour, Spain’s Minister of Culture and Tourism Jose Guirao has just come out with a statement supporting Domingo. Guirao says he doesn’t like anonymous accusations. Here’s an English approximation. https://spainsnews.com/jose-guirao-and-music-representatives-support-placido-domingo/ The original Spanish, which is better, is in El Mundo.
Secondly, an aging Mexican actress, Maria Victoria, has made a public statement revealing that she was harassed by Domingo when she was young. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaQP4QobQVs
But he didn’t harass and abuse everyone…is as plausible a defense as but he didn’t kill everyone. “You say that he was mean to you, but he wasn’t mean to me, so he couldn’t have been mean to you” doesn’t make sense
Of course he didn’t harass and abuse every female colleague that he worked with. He was even quite charming and kind to some of them– hence his great reputation. But that is irrelevant to what he is being accused of and has to answer to–that he used his great power to harass and abuse some female singers who were much less powerful than he was.
As far as anyone knows Mr. Domingo abused no one. Not in the legal definition of “abuse”, rest is poppycock (“He didn’t touch me physically, BUT…!)
The reason that harassers get away with harassment for so long is that they treat their friends and acquaintances, who are most likely to be as powerful as they are, in a way that makes their harassment seems implausible. If powerful people use their power to speak out against the alleged, powerless victims not based on their knowledge that would specifically disprove the accusations, but based on their positive personal interactions with PD, they are protecting and perpetuating the very abuse of power that allowed PD to abuse the victims
Lo quieren retirar, estoy de acuerdo con sr. Moral.que triste, como es la gente hoy dia, ojala todo se arregle. Mary Martin.
Happy to know about that and to read the kind words of the colleagues who support this wonderful artist.
Lets face it, among all the people hit by #metoo, he is the only one that has others dare to stand out and support him, is it really just be cause he is so powerful?? or maybe something else. Me too may start well, but it has been weaponized. Media in US are a mess today, I even quit listening NPR lot time ago (I use to listen to them everyday on my morning drive), let along CNN or NYT….
So true
And everyone is supposed to take sides, meaning that not much will be done, and in the meantime, it’s all over the news, the same people that overlooked his behavior when he was a glorious publicitiy draw, or they couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t, won’t yet feel like using it for another newsblitz that would basically be used as a distraction.
It also makes perpetrators so defensive that they run into denial, when they might have listened to reason; and unwanted behavior that could have been brought to the light, and understood as to what sort of insecurities it compensated for, it goes back into hiding and becomes more paranoid and devious. Thus goes vengeance and the need for bogeymen to hunt. You’re not changing anything investing in the same power struggles going on with the perpetrators.
Of course a bunch of his colleagues chime in, that ameliorate his virtues the same as they do the luxury they got out of the system, as they go back to their mansions, clueless to what kind of honesty rather than privilege went into the music they exploited.
And the saddest thing is the victims. People that, if it’s true about Placido Domingo’s behavior, which is not only reported in the news but numerous people here in this blog stating that they observed and knew about it, that it was an open secret, and more… if it’s true about his behavior, the victims still are made to feel that there’s something wrong with speaking out. One theater director here quoted acting like they want to knock down his incredible career, the standard first response of denial usually is to make people out to be jealous.
WHY does this stuff go on!? There’s a book by Mario Lanza’s physical therapist, who was by his side for years, Terry Robinson, and if you read what Mario all hauled out because of his fame, and ability to pay people off, and all of the nasty childish behavior, it will make your stomach turn.
And then you look at the metoo movement, who started it. Mia Farrow’s son Ronan. While Mia’s brother is in jail for child molestation (where he said Woody Allen would end up but didn’t); and Mia’s daughter Dylan, who after her claims were investigated it was stated they seemed coached; and then years later Moses Farrow comes out clearly explaining what went on at home, and to what a degree Dylan’s story doesn’t add up, what kind of constant coercion went on in the house; and that hardly gets any press, although Hollywood and the media caters to the idea of guilt, while the courts have already looked at the situation but didn’t find it pointed out guilt. But anyone daring to look clearly at what happened without charging around with the metoo flag gets blackballed or squinted at with piercing eyes, people that really would want to give victims a voice rather than making a media blitz out of it.
I’m not going to try to make any sense out of the whole thing anymore.
A bunch of news stories that don’t have to add up but get people choosing sides, creating money for those running the insult to a circus. I haven’t even seen THAT at the circus: “and now comes the news report about….”
They have picked on the wrong person. It is interesting though, that prominent conductors have not come in support of him, as pointed out in this site. It seems this movement have turned these usually outspoken personalities into cowards. No one knows who will be next.
This #MeToo is nothing but a terrorist group vent on harassing people. Anonymous women screaming being sexually harassed is ridiculous. I remember what my teacher in Euthenics at the university way back when said: “A man only goes as far as a woman allows him to…”. TRUE. if you have an issue…come out, please.
Has your crank science genius ever heard of rape? Or are all women supposed to have asked for it? What crackpot university was this?
Have you ever heard of rape, when a “victim” also tells a journalist: he didn’t touch me physically, but…”. Please get your definitions straight before you start belittling others.
Maybe one way to sum up the Domingo situation: He has always been genial and kind to others; he has also been an extremely busy womanizer adding notches to his belt with the same nervous industry that he adds roles to his repertory; and he has been in a position of power, formal and informal, in many theaters. Today, to be promiscuous and to hold power is automatically to be an abuser, because any such person will inevitably, at some point, hire a sex partner or fail to hire someone who has declined to be one. But it’s still worth making distinctions – the ugly behavior so well-documented in other cases has not be attributed to Domingo by anybody. Almost everybody who has ever dealt with him considers him a genuinely sympathetic and thoughtful person.
Meanwhile, though, a sleuthing question for NL. True or false that Midgette of the Washington Post was ready with such a story years ago, and PD lawyered up so hard that the paper blinked?
Interesting. I was wondering about Anne Midgette’s possible role in this, since Domingo heads Washington’ s opera. I’m sure she’s privvy to a lot of Domingo’s stories. Worth noting that Midgette and Jocelyn Gecker, the SF based reporter who wrote the Domingo article are aquainted on social media.
These singers are filth! He is guilty! The whole DAMN profession has known for years!… like Daniels or any other monster, he picked his prey carefully. Some people he mentored, others as mere sex objects! Men are pigs and Plácido Domingo ain’t no exception!
oink, oink, a gilt or a sow,
I don’t care if,
shes not some cow!
Sigh…only a minority of men are pigs. Most men really don’t particularly want hundreds of partners. Just as most (but not all) women don’t either.
Just to add to this:
“Of course a bunch of his colleagues chime in, that ameliorate his virtues the same as they do the luxury they got out of the system, as they go back to their mansions, clueless to what kind of honesty rather than privilege went into the music they exploited.”
What’s sad is how much it can go to people’s heads when they think they are involved with great art, that they start ameliorating effect, and find themselves so refined or great themselves, an elitist group, that they don’t question each other’s excesses. It happens in just about any group just about, when they think they are the anointed ones. It’s a miracle to me again, that what’s in the music still somehow comes through, and that’s not because of the “achievements,” of the elitist group making most of the money, or even what most people are enamored off.
It sounds like I’m being really harsh about people’s need to have friends, but I was trying to expand on what I felt was a superficial jab, regarding luxury and money.
If people would just see how much miracle, how much there is in the music that transcends all the physical achievement, all the sensuality they think it’s about and strive to experience, Music has become something alien to what it truly is. It’s something spiritual, maybe even more than the religions. The very nature of sound that is the vibration of physical matter, matter made up or particles that emerge from wave patterns moving at a speed where times stops, and if anything it resonating, as all wave patterns do, at such a speed time must be more than linear there, and beyond that another dimension might give that meaning. But music is the vibrations, in time, reflecting and blessing emotions, and experience itself.
But most people are enamored of how the music can stimulate them, or give them the feeling of sensual luxury; I don’t know what they’re scared of, as if they’d lose their soul by feeding it something more spiritual, something less of a distraction, except that they need distraction. But what about non attachment rather than needing distraction from what you can’t let go of?
Why after 30 years those woman bring up those story’s?
Yeah more people are standing up for Domingo
Envy an Jelousy are a terrible sin. Worst is to reach for the limelight on this fashion. One they could not Achieve on stage.
The Domingo Family will has an exemplary past..
Don Placido, you will be vindicated. Trust in GODs Providence.
And yet, the fact is that Domingo’s philandering ways were known far and wide in the world of opera. I have had several female singer friends who were warned about Domingo and to never be left alone with him if they could help it.
This pantomime of “I have never *heard* of such things!” is absolutely disgusting.
I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Domingo more than 50 years ago when he sang with Vancouver Opera. I was with him in the limousine that took a quartet of us from the theatre to an after-party and I still recall vividly his main topic of discussion was “Marta, Marta, Marta!” I recall that he had just recently been married and was obviously very, very much in love with his wife. It’s a love which obviously has seen them through decades of an amazing life. I simply do NOT believe these horrid accusations being hurled about by unprofessional journalists and nameless people who are probably just trying to get some money. Shame on them! BRAVO to Placido Domingo!
Monika Forberger, Managing Editor, http://www.entertainmentvancouver.com
I genuinely laughed out loud at your ridiculous remarks.
If it is a parody account … then well done.
PS. My boss at work several years ago kept a picture of his wife on his desk while chasing all the skirt he could when she wasn’t around.