At the beginning of the week, another and even, we would say, standard scandal for the brutal #MeToo - but therefore no less grandiose - scandal erupted in the already rather alarming and difficult world of classical music. Several women immediately accused the icon of modern opera - the Spanish singer, general director of the Los Angeles opera Placido Domingo of sexual harassment.

This is what can be said here, even if we don’t even delve into the everyday life of the manners reigning on the stage and behind the stage, they are already presented in all tabloids in a daily mode. And against their background, the accusations of the great Spanish tenor, even if they were proven and documented, would still look like an "innocent rat game." But in the end, everything should have a limit.

Sorry, we, of course, have long been living in this marvelous, new and alternative-tolerant world and we are already used to, of course, everyone. But here everything is somehow simple, as in that old, slightly scrupulous anecdote: “The case of gang rape is being heard, the group of raped is to stand up!”

And the point here is not even a ridiculous, albeit rather flat, pun.

And in the ruthless, impassable and unbearable vulgarity for any person remaining sanity, that “new happy reality” imposed on us all that is behind this.

Now let's try to explain.

It is already known that, for example, the San Francisco Opera House, where a concert with Placido Domingo was supposed to take place on October 6, and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, where the singer was supposed to participate in the opening of the new season on October 18, have canceled their invitations for the artist. Moreover, the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra did this with a completely amazing wording, stylistically completed both in form and content: “We are committed to supporting a safe, loyal, respectful and appropriate atmosphere for our orchestra and its staff, for invited performers and composers, for our audience and community groups. ”

Moreover, the wording is not “just like that”, but, excuse me, “on behalf of the leadership of the team”. And if one of the readers is even a little, even from books and films, familiar with the stuffy realities of the late Soviet era, then from this “Overton's window” he smelled like a stylistically perfect likeness of a party committee meeting on the “moral guilty appearance”: however , even in Soviet times, judging the actors by these standards, thank God, still did not think of.

But in the shadow of a shining city on a hill, imagine, realized.

For there the main thing is not “character elaboration”, but a material effect extracted from the situation.

Moreover, a tangible result, as it turns out, is possible not only without presenting at least any evidence, but even without contacting the relevant authorities: in this case it is trivial to “provide the necessary information” to the Associated Press. In another, to what kind of “media idol”, just as thoroughly moral that it can act as an arbiter and judge.

Never mind. It is important that, we emphasize, this is working right now, just in fact.

And what difference does it make in this beautiful world of “triumphant tolerance”, is it true or false and who is guilty or not guilty: well, tell someone today, for example, it’s interesting, for example, that actor Kevin Spacey was dropped at the end of July this year of all charges of sexual harassment : his career is still hopelessly broken.

We also remember how they soaked our international deputy Leonid Slutsky. Then the agents of influence from the Western media organized a whole campaign to bring down the career of a politician. However, Russia is not America, and even President Vladimir Putin spoke out against slander. But the tendency, as they say, is obvious - to prove it unproven. Therefore, the story with Domingo is already painfully familiar to us.

And all that can be done here is only to sympathize with the listeners of both the opera house in San Francisco and in Philadelphia: acquaintance with the angry but tolerant epistolary work of the "collective" of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra is still somewhat unequal in comparison with pleasure the voice of the great Spanish singer. For, as the author of the pen said at the time much better than the leadership taken together, and a fundamentally intolerant classic of American literature (five years in federal prison for embezzlement and chronic alcoholism do not contribute to excessive tolerance) William Sidney Porter, better known to the world in his own way pseudonym O'Henry: “Sand is a poor substitute for oats.”

By the way, alas, they cannot replace one Placido Domingo and those “eight singers and one dancer”, taken together, who suddenly remembered and very strongly told the Associated Press that they had been sexually harassed by Domingo at different times since the 1980s .

Because, as it happened, culture is a deeply hierarchical thing, not a “democratic one." It just so happened and so instituted by nature: one from the Lord measured a lot of talent, the other - just a little bit. And yes, this may not be fair, but this hierarchy is built on the principles of much deeper than the easily manipulated reactions of certain aggressively “progressive” and noisy strata. And from the point of view of this “hierarchy” it does not matter at all whether the great Spaniard performed “elements of harassment” with respect to “eight singers and one dancer” or not.

That is, to put it simply, regardless of the authenticity or non-authenticity of the stories about his increased love of love, the great tenor Placido Domingo is already in the history of world culture - and one cannot add to it. Even if you accumulate saliva for several decades - already from the 80s of the last century, when no one could even think of something like that.

But this is all so, jokes.

But seriously, with this obscurantism of militant tolerance, it is undoubtedly time to somehow end. Just at least from an elementary sense of species self-preservation: because if suddenly all the men stop dragging after women (and this already appears in the rapidly composing “media case of Domingo”, because it is alleged that six more women indicate that the 78-year-old tenor forced them feel embarrassed due to constant obscene offers), and women will stop flirting with men, then humanity will simply die out.

Just like dinosaurs. How do you mean mom and dad "parent number 1" and "parent number 2" just do not call.

Well, let's be frank if we describe what is happening in legal terms: harassment, especially in show business, is not a form of rape, but a form of a bribe that is given for obtaining certain opportunities or benefits. Well, yes, in such a peculiar form, to put it mildly, but a bribe. And from the point of view of the Criminal Code, even if the fact of a bribe did take place, both the bribe giver and the bribe taker bear the same responsibility for this crime, if we go deep into the subject.

That's just to delve into it, frankly, somehow I absolutely do not want to.

It's disgusting.

It’s better to just listen to good classical music, or serious jazz, or even just good old rock: even he, unlike this dirty laundry exhibition, is a much more environmentally friendly product. And that is precisely why the author of these lines is sincerely proud that no matter what the great Spanish tenor had with these “eight singers and one dancer”, it would never occur to anyone to cancel the concerts coming this fall due to such stupidities Placido Domingo in the hero city of Moscow.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.