For decades, Placido Domingo, one of the most celebrated and powerful men in opera, has tried to pressure women into sexual relationships by dangling jobs and then sometimes punishing the women professionally when they refused his advances, numerous accusers told The Associated Press. Regarded as one
For decades, Placido Domingo, one of the most celebrated and powerful men in opera, has tried to pressure women into sexual relationships by dangling jobs and then sometimes punishing the women professionally when they refused his advances, numerous accusers told The Associated Press.
Eight singers and a dancer have told the AP that they were sexually harassed by the long-married, Spanish-born superstar in encounters that took place over three decades beginning in the late 1980s, at venues that included opera companies where he held top managerial positions. The AP also spoke to almost three dozen other singers, dancers, orchestra musicians, members of backstage staff, voice teachers and an administrator who said they witnessed inappropriate sexually tinged behavior by Domingo and that he pursued younger women with impunity.
Seven of the nine accusers told the AP they feel their careers were adversely impacted after rejecting Domingo's advances, with some saying that roles he promised never materialized and several noting that while they went on to work with other companies, they were never hired to work with him again. 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."
But ultimately, those who talked to the AP said they felt emboldened by the #MeToo movement and decided the most effective way to attack the entrenched sexual misconduct in their industry was to call out the behavior of opera's most prominent figure. "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." And a male singer and friend told the AP that he remembered the singer seeking his advice about how to navigate the situation.
She said the superstar mentioned his"superstition that he had to be with a woman before a show" to help him relax and calm his nerves. A young singer who met Domingo at a rehearsal that year said he immediately began calling her at home. "I was totally intimidated and felt like saying no to him would be saying no to God. How do you say no to God?" she said.
"He picked me up in his BMW and I got in the car with him. He was very excited. He was touching my knee. I went in my mind into acting so I could live with myself," she said. She said they drove to his apartment near the opera's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where champagne was waiting. A friend and colleague of the singer told the AP that she remembered the singer saying Domingo was inundating her with calls and ignoring requests to stop. The singer's weight dropped dramatically and she developed problems with her nerves, the colleague said.
"I still struggle with the sense that I let myself down, pushing through and doing my job when I should have raised holy hell," she said.Patricia Wulf, another mezzo-soprano who worked with Domingo, said he would confront her night after night with the same whispered question. In an interview at her home in Virginia, Wulf, now 61, held back tears as she related how, after investing years training her voice, she finally arrived on the big stage, only to find herself facing a predicament she didn't know how to handle.
"I'd open the door and peek and see if he was there. And if he was there, I would just wait," she said. Contacted by the AP, the former colleague recalled Wulf's discomfort and said he would accompany her to her car at work because she feared going alone."Absolutely and most certainly, that was sexual harassment," she said."When a man steps that close to you and with a wry smile asks if I have to go home — repeatedly — I can come up with no other conclusion than him wanting to bed me. Especially given his reputation for that.
Halfway through the short drive, she said, he put his hand on her leg and, as she reached his building, directed her toward a side entrance and told her to pull over. But then, she said,"When it was over, he stood up and slid his hand down my skirt, and that was when I had to get out of there." She said a flirtatious Domingo called her late at night on-and-off for about a decade in the 1990s, leaving brazen messages that she would listen to in shock with her husband.
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 traveling 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."
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