Plácido due award after rocky period

Embattled opera singer Plácido Domingo is set to receive a lifetime achievement award in Austria next week, marking his first public appearance since battling COVID-19 in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations.

The top tenor, 79, will receive the honor Thursday at an invitation-only ceremony at the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Airport in Salzburg organized by the group behind the 8-year-old Austrian Music Theater Prize.

Domingo (inset), who was hospitalized with a coronavirus infection in Mexico in March, will go on to perform at the Arena di Verona in northern Italy later this month. He previously had several engagements in the U.S. canceled after a lengthy exposé by the Associated Press last summer that detailed allegations of sexual harassment or misconduct from several women.

The women variously told the AP that Domingo pursued them relentlessly, pressured them to attend one-on-one meetings and punished them if they rebuffed his unsolicited gropes and kisses.

In the aftermath of the AP reports, Domingo withdrew from a production at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera and stepped down from his general director role at the Los Angeles Opera.

Domingo said he was resigning “with a heavy heart” and would “continue to work to clear my name.”

When the American Guild of Musical Artists and the LA Opera deemed the sexual harassment accusations to be credible, he issued an apology but then quickly amended it.

“My apology was sincere and heartfelt, to any colleague who I have made to feel uncomfortable, or hurt in any manner, by anything I have said or done,” he wrote.

“But I know what I have not done, and I’ll deny it again. I have never behaved aggressively toward anyone, and I have never done anything to obstruct or hurt anyone’s career,” he said.