• Los Angeles. Placido Domingo resigns as director of the Opera
  • New York City: Placido Domingo resigns from singing again in the MET for accusations of sexual harassment
  • Detonating: Nine women accuse Plácido Domingo of sexual harassment
  • Continued. Accused by 11 other women of sexual harassment
  • Research: The Los Angeles report, key to Sunday's future
  • Cancellation: The Dallas Opera cancels a gala with Placido

The organizers of the Batuta de México Prize announced this Thursday that they have given up the award for excellence to the Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo after the accusations of sexual harassment that the artist faces in the United States.

Two days after the delivery ceremony, the organizing committee confirmed that the acknowledgment will not be sent to the tenor until the accusations made against him by a group of former partners are clarified.

"In the face of the accusations and the circumstances surrounding the tenor, we reiterate our wish that this situation will soon be clarified for the benefit of all parties involved and the classical music guild," the organizers said.

"At least for this first edition of the Batuta awards, the prize will not be given to Maestro Plácido Domingo. We will wait for everything to be clear," they added.

The Batuta Prize was to be awarded to the 78-year-old Madrid star at a gala in Mexico City, just three days after his resignation as director general of the Los Angeles Opera after accusations of sexual harassment.

The tenor's publicist, Nancy Seltzer, said Domingo was not planning to attend the ceremony.

"While Mr. Plácido Domingo feels happy and honored to receive the first Batuta Prize from his teammates, the organizers of the event knew from the start that he would not personally attend the ceremony," Seltzer told AFP in an email before Confirm that the award to Domingo was withdrawn.

However, René Platiní, who heads the organizing committee, said the tenor had confirmed his attendance. He explained that when the organization invited him to Mexico in May, there were no accusations of sexual harassment against him.

In August, eight lyric singers and a dancer told the press about harassment incidents that date back to the 1980s.

A later note cited 11 other women, including one who said that Domingo had lowered her robe to grab her bare chest.

The scandal threatens to end Sunday's race in the United States. He also had to give up his performances at the New York Opera a day before he released "Macbeth."

In addition to Domingo, another 15 personalities, including British composer Michael Nyman, Mexican flutist Horacio Franco and Mexican soprano María Luisa Tamez would be awarded at the Batuta Awards.

Second home

Mexico made a series of tributes earlier this year to commemorate 70 years of Sunday's first visit to the country, who came to reside with his family when he was eight years old and considered his "second home."

The tenor entered the National Conservatory of Music in 1949, an institution that in 2018 gave its name to one of its concert halls. A year earlier, the University of Guadalajara, in western Mexico, had already named the main hall of its cultural ensemble as "Plácido Domingo".

"Placido would receive recognition this week in Fine Arts that, for more than a month, was canceled in light of the scandal that was beginning to take shape. So , given the current situation, we doubt his presence," said music critic Lázaro Random, chance, fate.

Double controversy

There is also controversy over another of the winners of the Batuta Awards, the Mexican director Enrique Bátiz, who, like Domingo, is accused of sexual harassment by former comrades.

The most recent complaint against Bátiz came up in 2018 when Swiss violinist Silvia Crastan reported on Twitter that she was a victim of rape by the director at a hotel in Zurich in 1996.

Raúl Díaz, critic of the magazine Proces, questioned the authenticity of the award and its moral and social character in the face of the wave of accusations against two of the winners.

"If half of the accusations are true, he puts them on an absolutely vulnerable and critical ground. No one should use their position of power to get favors, let alone sexual, but of any kind," Diaz said.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Placido Domingo
  • Mexico
  • culture
  • Opera
  • Sexual abuse

OperaPremian Domingo is awarded in Mexico although "it probably raises controversy"

MusicThe Dallas Opera cancels a gala with Plácido Domingo after the new accusations of sexual abuse

Complaint Domingo Domingo, accused by 11 other women of sexual harassment