Two music companies cancelled appearances by the opera legend Placido Domingo over multiple sexual harassment allegations
Many of the accusers said they were warned repeatedly by colleagues to never be alone with Placido Domingo , even in an elevator. If they did join him for a meal, they said they were told to avoid alcohol and meet at a public place — for lunch, not dinner. In this file photo, Domingo performs at football World Cup final in Berlin on July 9, 2006.
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Opera announced they would cancel upcoming performances featuring the star, regarded as one of the greatest opera singers of all time. Three women quoted in the story detailed encounters that they said occurred while working with Domingo at LA Opera, including one woman who told the AP that he stuck his hand down her skirt after urging her to come sing an aria for him at his apartment.
The Met held a black-tie dinner in April for Domingo, where seats started at $2,500. He is scheduled to play the lead of "Macbeth" in three Met shows in September and October. "I would find it factually wrong and morally irresponsible to make irreversible judgments at this point," she said. Regarded as one of the greatest opera singers of all time, Domingo also is a prolific conductor and the director of the Los Angeles Opera.
One accuser said Domingo stuck his hand down her skirt and three others said he forced wet kisses on their lips — in a dressing room, a hotel room and at a lunch meeting. Domingo did not respond to detailed questions from the AP about specific incidents, but issued a statement saying: "The allegations from these unnamed individuals dating back as many as thirty years are deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate.
Retired opera singer Patricia Wulf poses for a portrait in her home in rural northern Virginia, US on July 12, 2019. Only one of the nine women would allow her name to be used — Patricia Wulf, a mezzo-soprano who sang with Domingo at the Washington Opera. The others requested anonymity, saying they either still work in the business and feared reprisals or worried they might be publicly humiliated and even harassed.
One of them said she had sex with him twice, including at the Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles. When Domingo left for a performance, the woman said, he put $10 on the dresser, saying, "I don't want you to feel like a prostitute, but I also don't want you to have to pay to park." "There is an oral tradition of warning women against Placido Domingo," said a mezzo-soprano who worked at the LA Opera but is not among the accusers.
"I hadn't started my career yet. I was completely flattered. And floored. And excited," she said. "Then it got creepier." Rather than offend Domingo and risk losing future assignments, the mezzo-soprano said she strenuously tried to avoid being alone with him, while also striving not to insult him. But he did not take the hint, she said and resumed his unwelcome pursuit whenever he returned to Los Angeles.
One backstage staff member said many felt Domingo was pursuing the mezzo-soprano "in some way that she was not wanting. We were all aware of that." She said she had sex with Domingo on two occasions, at the Biltmore and at his Los Angeles apartment. "I don't have a smoking gun," she said, but "for somebody who was calling me and trying to see me every year, every time he was in town, to just never contact me again and never hire me again is pretty convenient."The LA Opera announced in 1998 that Domingo would become its artistic director, after working for years as a consultant for the company.
During one of his frequent uninvited visits to her dressing room, he admired her costume, leaning forward to kiss her cheeks and placing one hand on the side of her breast, she said. After one performance, the singer said she went home and answered the phone, her heart sinking when she heard Domingo's voice.
Domingo continued to pursue her in the days and weeks after, she said, calling her repeatedly. "I felt like prey. I felt like I was being hunted by him," she said."I was not prepared for how much it would mess with my confidence, and my feeling shame about it and wondering who knew and if they thought that's why I got an opportunity or a role," she said. "I started to doubt my own talent and skills.
The singer said that once Domingo took over control of casting decisions at the LA Opera, he never hired her again. At first, she said, she nervously laughed off Domingo's remarks, even though she considered them offensive. But when he persisted, she made her position clear.It was 1998 and Wulf's career was taking off at the Washington Opera, where Domingo served as artistic director from 1996-2003 and general director from 2003-2011.
"But," she added, "you also think as soon as you walk away and get away, you think, 'Did I just ruin my career?' And that went on through that entire production.""It got to a point that I would come off stage and try to slither behind a pillar, and he would still find a way to get to me," she said. Lew told the AP that he would ask his wife after each performance, "Did it happen again? Did he say the same thing?" He added that "at a certain point, we didn't have to ask. You could just tell by how upset she was."
Wulf said she is speaking out because the silence about what she called the "well-known secret" of Domingo's behaviour has stretched on too long. "I'm stepping forward because I hope that it can help other women come forward, or be strong enough to say no," she said. "He leaned in and tried to kiss me," then asked her upstairs, she said. She added that she declined, saying she had other plans.
She said he followed her into the hallway, begged her to stay, then gestured downward and told her he had "two hours left," which she believed was a reference to a sexual performance drug."I went home and was terrified to go back to work," she said. "I was frozen in terror for that whole contract." Domingo would ask her to meet him, including in his hotel room, but she said she would only go to lunch with him, always framed as a business meal.
One afternoon when they were working together at the Washington Opera, she said Domingo asked her to meet for lunch at his hotel restaurant to discuss work. After the meal, he suggested they walk to rehearsal but said he needed to first stop at his room. In her 20s at the time, the singer was a master's student at The Juilliard School in 1992, spending the summer travelling in Europe with her sister.
"He would talk in this childlike voice that was flirty," she recalled. "He wanted to come to my apartment — and that was weird." She remembers feeling elated when he praised her singing, taking her face in his hands after one performance and telling her, "You have moved me. Your performance moved me." He was artistic director at both the Washington and LA operas and told her, "I'm going to find work for you... I do many concerts. And I ask my favourite singers to join me."
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