Placido Domingo shouts out his denial
News‘I never harrassed anyone,’ the singer has said in a interview with El Mundo, reported by Reuters.
‘The main mistake I made was to remain silent for too much time. I don’t like controversy. For that reason I stood aside and kept my counsel while watching how, in an instant, years of work and effort were erased.’
An independent legal inquiry conducted by LA Opera found that allegations of sexual harrassment by ten women were ‘credible’.
The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) heard evidence of inappropriate conduct from around 40 singers, dancers, musicians and opera company staff.
Domingo, who turned 81 last week, said at the time of the disclosures that he was ‘truly sorry for the hurt I caused them’ but has since returned to total denial.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday…
How to get your knickers in a knot…
LA Opera, AGMA and others need to release names, not just ‘credible’ sources. PD at this stage of life and career cannot do much of anything for ‘retribution’ and so these people need to stand up and not hide behind that excuse. Being in their profession takes a lot more courage than doing that. And perhaps then they can all literally face the guy and talk it out. I think this is essential for everyone’s healing and might go a long way towards dealing with this canceling stuff. Watch OPERALIA and see the good he does and has done. If he did wrong, face him and let him atone. But you can’t atone to a shadow.
I really like your message-intelligent, fair and rational which is what is needed when people make allegations. Well said!
That’s right. They should stand up. Maestro does not deserve this considering his age.
So old age should forgive the sins of the past? If you murdered someone 50 years ago and were only caught now, you should not pay for your crime? If you lied to your spouse of an affair 50 years ago, but find out now, it should be okay now because you’re old? Asking for a friend….
You are playing judge here with no evidence, lynch mob trial on social media, and just hearsay at the moment. He could put his hand on a shoulder and someone would accuse him as acting inappropriately and if American, start sueing!
One is innocent until proved guilty.
as you also judge the innocence or guilt of Domingo and bring his age into it. Why bring his age into it? They stood up and said something. Who are you to judge that it needs to be public?
This is a total joke. All of a sudden they pop out of the woodwork. Ridiculous!! Same as happened to Gov Cuomo.
Flirting was not considered sexual harassment years ago. It’s not a sin of the past.
Talk it out? What is there to talk about? If you feel harassed, but he says you weren’t, then were you really though? The only way for that conversation to end is for him to say “sorry, I didn’t mean to harass you. I only wanted to get into your panties.”
Haven’t you heard of the concept of ‘Restorative Justice.’ In this case you and I don’t know what’s happened, do we. So were not talking about a ‘crime.’ Have a look at how RJ works, so the people commenting about ‘talking,’ ‘dialogue’ and on this sight, ‘conversation’ are aiming at something more than the hopeless dead lock your comment offers. Have a think aboutvwhere your comment comes from because it’s nothing more than a cheap tabloid headline….. It doesn’t serve the world.
I agree. Credible sources. I am done with the people who are making the allegations hiding from everyone! Own up for yourself!! Being your own advocate is much better than hiding behind the wall of being a credible source!
Yeah, and then lose your hard-won career because of people like the ones here who are angry with you that you deprived the world of hearing the great Domingo anymore? Right.
Nobody is only bad or good. But the good a person does does not erase the bad.
Plenty of allegations and accusations, and yet not a SINGLE law suit so far. Well, the US is not a litigous society, as we all know…
How many times do you people have to be told? Harassment is not (necessarily) a criminal offence. It is harassment in the workplace, and is normally dealt with in the workplace, as it has been here. Workplaces where Domingo was considered to have made fellow workers uncomfortable — on a personal basis — removed him.
Given his drawing power in a cash-strapped art form, it is revelatory that so many places decided to dispense with his services.
I have written on this issue before. Domingo was a great artist, one of the finest tenors of the last 100 years. But I have two examples when he harrassed young ladies.
One was my assistant when we were working on a major concert event with him. He pestered her to meet with him in his suite to the point where she was intensely embarrassed. She eventually told him her husband was arriving the following day – which was true. He then backed off.
The other much more serious occasion was again after a concert and a post-concert dinner. He had invited a young lady who happened to be from another country and who was working on PR to have drinks in his suite after the dinner. She stupidly agreed to go. Even going up to our rooms in the lift, Sir John Tooley, another person who is presently the CEO of a London Orchestra and I begged this lady not to go. I suppose some will say that what follows is her fault because she said she was a grown-up (I think 23 yo) and PD knew she was engaged.
PD made improper advances to her in the suite and it took her a full 45 minutes to get out of it. She left on the first flight in the morning. She did not want to be near him.
Thank you, Nick.
A very famous singer I had the honour to work with mentioned an eerily similar episode that happened to her with PD early on in her career. She had no reason to make it up as she has been extremely successful so I think the accusations have more than a grain of truth in them.
Not everybody sees it fit to air their private concerns online for the social media crowd to have something to mill about. The expectation people will do so is a new and, if I may say so, rather weird expectation. The expectation institutions will go online with confidential information that may be bound to Non Disclosure Agreements is even weirder. Also, not everything ends up in a law suit. Also, there are civil law suits and criminal law suits. You have a very hazy notion about the workings of the justice system. Lastly, Domingo has acknowledged at the time that the accusations were true.
I am aware that not every harassment is legally a crime and that not every crime gets its day in court. And yet, since the start of “me too” there have been numerous law suits leading to huge payments and / or to prison time. Many high and mighty perpetrators have taken quite a fall.
Any yet, not a single suit has been brought against Domingo. Legal proceedings are not everything, but the complete absence of *any* suits is not irrelevant either. So, don’t paint Domingo as another Epstein, Weinstein, Cosby. Because he is not in that league, at least not until proven guilty.
Domingo has not, to the best of my knowledge, been accused of rape or sexual assault. He has been accused of being a sexual nuisance, a harasser. The matter has been disposed of in the best way — getting shot of him. Workplace harassment rarely ends up in court
No-one has sued him. No-one has profited from their own discomfiture. The suggestion that they profited by being able to progress normally in their own profession if they went along with him is risible. They are entitled to make their way without having to fend off the advances of a man who reeks of entitlement because he is in power, either actual in some of his positions, or because he is a star. Anyone who thinks stars do not get special treatment has not been watching UK parliamentary news recently.
Just ask Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd, two of a number of young actresses whose careers stopped in their tracks at a point where they were exploding. Both turned down Harvey Weinstein.
From reports, it seemed Domingo was more of a persistent nuisance than a major league predator. But his changes of story, and his continuing to raise the subject — when he seems to be getting plenty work and nobody is talking about anything except the state of his voice — speaks to his need for uncritical adulation. Lends credence to the notion that he would have been difficult to work with.
Well, Domingo has so much money and can be lawyered-up to the hilt. He preyed upon people with less power than he, people surely less likely to afford a top-rated attorney.
Well said SHL,Agree 100%
I disagree. Sexual assault is extremely hard to deal with and reactions like yours are the reason why so many people gind it hard to state it openly.
Not all sexual assaults happen by having someone dragged kicking and screaming against their will. If you are a 20 something year old trying to forge a career in a very difficult world and then a world famous tenor makes advances on you even though he is thirty years your senior, you might find it difficult to say no, out of fear he would hinder your career progression. If you speak out, people would say you are a jilted jealous bitch.
Secondly, talent and love for music and the arts can never make up nor are they proportionally related to compassion, empathy and integrity.
Lastly, it is extremely hard to relive again and again an assault whilst it is dissected and pooh poohed by the public and the media. I highly doubt that the very house hefounded would chuck him out without reason. Remember, his career is still going strong, while these people are trying to come to terms with the permanent fall out.
Another reason to love Anna Netrebko is that at the time of the accusations again Domingo, she completely owned #metoo’s ass and exposed the fake movement for what it is, a money scam. Unless you’re physically restrained or raped, you just say NO. And walk out. The rest is prostitution. Anyone putting up with abuse for decades because of a job, a career or the consequences of walking out, is not a victim, is a prostitute.
And the person who holds these plums over someone is what?
You need to understand that for these kinds of sex pests to continue succeeding there has to be a cohort who’ll go along with this – for whatever myriad reasons. As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. Part of being a fully grown adult – or even and emerging one – is to be able to say, “no thanks; I’ve got a pressing engagement. A couple of things to iron”.
Personal responsibility is NEVER an expectation, especially when it’s somebody internationally famous with a bit of boodle. They’ll walk into any lawyer’s office and the first question is: “who’s got the money?”
Implied or otherwise.
Manny is obviously clueless!
Or made to prostitute in order to maintain a career, a living?
I totally agree with you
Anna is a racist Russian Covid-denying Putin-supporting fascistic right-winger. The best approach of any humane person is to automatically believe the PRECISE OPPOSITE of whatever she states in the political realm. And of course the “P” word you use is more accurately assigned to her.
It was my distinct pleasure to serve Mr. Domingo on an international flight where he was the single passenger in the forward cabin. He was charming, gracious, and happy to meet our entire crew including captain and first officer. He had very large sheets of music spread out across a few empty seats and was practicing conducting in the first row. It was a wonderful experience and I will always respect and admire him.
See John 8:7
I do not believe him. I have seen his constant entourage of pretty young women in the 80s, following him around. They all were a particular type. It was a joke among us at the opera company!
I mote you said’following him around’ if I were offended by someone’s behaviour I would not be following him around
Ha,Ha,Brilliant Reply!
I actually believe him and not only because i want to to believe him
I actually don’t believe him and not only because i don’t want to believe him.
Can you detect any value in the statement above? I can’t. Nor can I see any value in yours.
He’s his own worst enemy to keep bringing this up. I can only imagine what is publicist must think. The sexual harassers who move past it are the ones who keep their mouths shut and don’t remind people of the transgressions.
perhaps he has entered that period in life when one can’t generate headlines by any other means… Bad news is better than no news at all when one has an ego to feed?
I’m sure Domingo believes he didn’t harass anyone. Any singer who insists on a full schedule into his eighties has a narcissistic streak, but he’s from a former age when he was far from the worst offender. He should have retired years ago, and this stretching out the end of his career is a sad state of affairs. If he had just enjoyed a well-deserved retirement and not depended on adulation for his self-worth, this story would have been over in three minutes and everybody would have moved on after a small asterisk to a great career in which he’d ultimately be remembered as a very good guy. Now, he’s just a dinosaur, and this will be a definite part of his legacy.
How easily the vultures take on the dual role of judge and jury in such alleged cases as this. You should take a good long look in your mirrors and see if the image of a person who is completely blameless of any misdemeanor towards anyone looks back at you.
As has already been pointed out, Placido Domingo is still an innocent man until a jury, fair or otherwise, changes that. There are too many ‘Hang em all’ types in what pass for civilised societies now when it comes to these sort of alleged incidents and those who become tarred with the guilty brush of jaundiced public opinion and are innocent can also lay claim to being victims of a ‘Me too’ movement.
If you want to spread the filth of unproven accusation against a man like Domingo, or anyone in such an unfortunate position as he is currently in, without the slightest shred of evidence, then you are no better than the individuals you are accusing. I believe Domingo is a good man and deserves to be treated with all due respect.