Breaking: Operalia ends in shocking indecision

Jane H says:

Both winners are represented by Placido Domingo’s grandson, who just started a career as an agent in Askonas Holt. It has been known for a long time, that the general rules often don’t apply to this competition. Despite having an application system, there have been many singers across the years who have been invited on the basis of nepotism, by private connections and trespassing the application process. But it is absolutely acceptable in this scenario because it is one person’s private event, they are allowed to do whatever they want to. What is wrong with this, is that music lovers, magazines and organisations with certain status across the world started taking this as the one truthful qualifying event for all the singers, the Olympic games for opera singers. This is wrong. Who said that this least transparent competition which is run by one person with no public mandate should be dictating what’s good and what the fashion should be in the oper world? May I remind that Placido Domingo & co are obsessed with petite women for example and since the existence of this competition they have played the mammoth role of changing the looks of the opera singers? Now we have pretty mediocre female singers who are sold to us as the best singers solely on the basis of their looks. Domingo & co are responsible for dismissing many great voices and failing to nurture the dramatic voices favouring the tiny petite women because they want to get in bed with them.

Placido’s competition is a criminal organisation – it takes young singers, ‘creates stars’ out of them who then get to be represented by agents in Placido’s closer circle (either his own manager, a documented criminal Alessandro Ariosi, or in this case by his grandson) who then exploit these singers to make money on their commissions. The singers’ star qualities are artificially inflated and singers who are often talented, but too green and in need of serious training, are sold to the music-lovers internationally as the only stars worth listening to. This is rather harmful to those singers too. For example, the young soprano who was presented with the 1st prize yesterday lacks good training, which is heard in her vocal production, problems with linguistic and stylistic knowledge and the choice of an easy (from the technical standpoint) repertoire. She could pass for a strong student and should need further education, but she will now be sold the idea that she’s the best singer in the world and won’t settle for anything less than that. It is very sad to see.

Who said that one person’s private event (Placido Domingo’s private competition) should actually be the international standard for opera singers and be treated almost as an institution? Why did we end up in here?!

On the other hand, Placido is an old singer who sings terribly and conducts even worse, who still is milking the cow, who most of the world doesn’t want to do anything with apart from opera theatres in Russia, Hungary and some post soviet corrupt countries. He will continue milking it for as long as the art institutions are willing to have him. Those making the decisions to bring Placido back into these art institutions (casting directors) are all his pals, who end up being on the panel of his competition. May I also add, that most of these people aren’t qualified to do their jobs (don’t have appropriate education) and they consist of this musical mafia acting as a factory where the vendor (Operalia) makes the product and sells it in a monopolistic fashion to the market (art organisations and corrupt casting directors).