MEXICO CITY, Oct 5, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Opera superstar Placido Domingo will
receive Mexico’s Batuta prize in classical music after all, organizers said
Friday, a day after stating it would be withheld over a flood of sexual
harassment accusations.
Domingo was chosen in May to receive the first edition of the prize in
Mexico City during a ceremony this Saturday, along with 15 other honorees.
However, organizers said Thursday they had decided to put his award on
hold “until all this has been clarified.”
Changing course again Friday, they decided Domingo would in fact receive
the award, but would not attend the ceremony in person, instead addressing
the gala by video.
“We wish to clarify that the organizing committee has not withdrawn
Maestro Domingo’s award. On the contrary, the classical music community
celebrates the Spanish tenor’s six decades of absolute dedication to the
arts,” they said in a statement.
Domingo “will personally address a special message to the ceremony,” they
added.
“We are still going to give him the prize. We just hope for better times
ahead and that everything gets better for him,” the head of the organizing
committee, Rene Platini, told AFP.
The latest drama comes after Domingo, 78, resigned Wednesday as general
director of the Los Angeles Opera, effectively ending his career in the
United States.
He also withdrew last week from all performances at New York’s
Metropolitan Opera. Several other US opera houses have cancelled concerts
featuring him because of the sexual harassment allegations.
Domingo is accused by 20 women of forcibly kissing, grabbing or fondling
them, in incidents going back at least to the 1980s.
The “King of Opera” has responded that “all my interactions and
relationships were always welcomed and consensual.”
Highlighting international fault lines in the #MeToo scandal, Domingo’s
career has continued to thrive in Europe even as it is imperiled in the
United States.
He performed to a chorus of bravos this summer in Austria and Hungary, and
has upcoming concerts in Zurich and Moscow.
The Batuta, which organizers hope to make an annual prize, will be awarded
to 16 honorees including British composer Michael Nyman, Mexican soprano
Maria Luisa Tamez and Mexican conductor Enrique Batiz, who is himself facing
sexual assault allegations.