More women say opera legend Domingo harassed

The glittering production was a high point of the Washington Opera’s 1999-2000 season: Jules Massenet’s “Le Cid,” about a legendary Spanish conqueror, starring a tenor legendary in his own right — Placido Domingo, then the company’s artistic director.

The opera, also being filmed for broadcast on public television, was unquestionably a career break for a 28-year-old singer named Angela Turner Wilson, who’d been cast as the second female lead and was singled out for praise in reviews. “I knew this was the start of big things for me,” she says now.

But one evening before a performance, she said, she and Domingo were having their makeup done together when he rose from his chair, stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. As she looked at him in the mirror, he suddenly slipped his hands under her bra straps, she said, then reached down into her robe and grabbed her bare breast.

“It hurt,” she told The Associated Press. “It was not gentle. He groped me hard.” She said Domingo then turned and walked away, leaving her stunned and humiliated.

Wilson, now 48 and a college voice teacher in the Dallas area, was one of 11 women to come forward after an Aug. 13 AP story in which numerous women accused the long-married, Spanish-born superstar of sexual harassment or inappropriate, sexually charged behavior and of sometimes damaging their careers if they rejected him. In the weeks since that story was published, the women have shared new stories about encounters with Domingo, currently the general director of Los Angeles Opera, that they said included unwanted touching, persistent requests for private get-togethers, late-night phone calls and sudden attempts to kiss them on the lips.

Several additional backstage employees described for the AP how they strove to shield young women from the star as administrators looked the other way.

Taken together, their stories reinforce a picture of an industry in which Domingo’s behavior was an open secret and young women were left to fend for themselves in the workplace.

Domingo’s spokeswoman issued a statement disputing the allegations but provided no specifics.

“The ongoing campaign by the AP to denigrate Placido Domingo is not only inaccurate but unethical. These new claims are riddled with inconsistencies and, as with the first story, in many ways, simply incorrect,” spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer said.