Placido Domingo on a Tear

Anne Midgette, a critic for the Washington Post, reviewed a Washington National Opera production of Tosca on September 10th. She reported Placido Domingo's conducting as "merely serviceable...All the performances were hampered, indeed sabotaged by the conducting.  Placido Domingo...rather than supporting the singers...either drowned them out or tripped them up. He got warm applause but I'm not sure his presence sells enough tickets to make up for spoiling the evening." 

Domingo answered in a letter to the Post  "Anne Midgette has crossed the line between reasonably objective criticism and what appears to be open animosity.  Midgette's statement that my conducting 'sabotaged' WNO's recent performances of Puccini's 'Tosca' is offensive and defamatory."

We noted last March in a piece on the future of the Metropolitan Opera, that Domingo's conducting was causing real problems. Peter Gelb, general manager of the Met, wrote in an article posted in the Times that an artist who told us she was perturbed by Domingo's conducting  had in fact claimed she was poisoned.  

That either Domingo, a wonderful tenor, or Gelb, a superb marketer, can be drawn into these fraci shows that something is rotten in Denmark.  Even if there is a quid pro quo between Domingo conducting at the Met, and Keri-Lynn Wilson, Gelb's wife, conducting in venues which Domingo controls, critics have not only the right but a duty to speak up about the quality of the music. In top notch houses where tickets are expensive, patrons deserve better.

The term diva (male: divo) is closely associated with opera. It is the norm to pamper great artists. But this also entails indulgent management when a renowned tenor stretches the limit of his capabilities to pick up the baton. Such decisions have questionable merits for audiences.  

Many critics and reviewers  don't dare open their mouths.  But opera is nothing if not operatic.  Brava Anne Midgette.