Thimothée Chalamet (New York, 30 years old), the great favorite to win the Oscar for best leading actor this year for Marty Supreme, He said it almost as a game, with a mocking laugh during a conversation with fellow interpreter Matthew McConaughey for CNN and the magazine Variety. “I want cinema to survive,” he began, “I don’t want to work in opera or ballet, disciplines about which everyone says: ‘We must keep them alive,’ even though no one is interested in them anymore. With all due respect to the opera and ballet workers.” It took him a few seconds to realize that his words were going to make him some enemies. “I’m getting shots for no reason,” he laughed.
But surely he did not expect the shots to be so many and so vehement: that unleashed a wave of effusive responses from the world of ballet and, above all, that of opera: the Met in New York, the National Ballet of England, the Paris Opera, the Scala in Milan, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, the Teatro Real in Madrid or the Liceu in Barcelona. In short: all the world’s major opera houses, ballet companies and many stars of both disciplines had something to say.
The actor’s statements occurred on February 21, but went viral at the end of last week because the magazine published that fragment of the interview on its social networks. All just a few days before this year’s Oscars and coinciding—the talk of speculators—with the closing of the academic voting period (March 5). Surely for this reason, the controversy also left the world of opera and reached the world of entertainment. The program Saturday Night Livefor example, didn’t let it go: “Chalamet has been criticized by major opera and ballet organizations after stating that no one cares about those art forms. Chalamet made this comment during a press tour for his film about ping-pong,” they said.
Already the publication of Variety added thousands of comments against the actor, some from very relevant personalities: from the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard – “Honestly, it surprises me that someone so apparently successful can be so ineloquent and narrow-minded in his opinions on art while considering himself an artist” – to the Brazilian dancer Victor Caixeta Ballet – “Ballet and opera have survived for centuries. We will see if their films will still be seen in 300 years” -.
Then came responses on personal networks. Nadine Sierra, the American opera star of the moment, wrote on her Instagram stories: “When a supporting actor says an ignorant and arrogant comment. Chalamet, fortunately we are not interested or concerned about you.” The New York Met responded with a video of the work behind the productions; the Vienna State Opera took to the streets to ask people how interested they were in opera (with positive results, naturally); The Dortmund Opera House showed all the sold-out tickets on its website, and a text: “Who is Timothée anyway?”; and the Royal Opera House made an explicit invitation: “If you want to reconsider, Chalamet, our doors are open.” Everyone accumulates hundreds of thousands of I like.
In Spain, the publication of the Teatro Real de Madrid accumulates almost 17,000 I like. Alondra de la Parra, director of the Orchestra and Choir of the Community of Madrid, uploaded not one but two videos addressing Chalamet, speaking in English, and somewhat theatrical. In one of them he comes out of a kind of coffin and says sarcastically: “Hello Timothée, I’m coming out of my coffin, because… we’re dead.” This one also accumulates almost 80,000 I like. Others even went a little further to attract attention. Seattle Opera announced a 14% “Timothée Chalamet discount” to see its production of Carmen the weekend. “Timmy, you can come too. See you at the opera!”, they wrote on their networks.
The statements are perhaps more surprising coming from an actor close to both disciplines, especially ballet: his mother and sister studied at the School of American Ballet, and he grew up in Manhattan Plaza, a building for artists that included actors, singers and dancers. In Spain, 3.9% of the population went to opera, and 7.2% to dance and ballet, according to data from the latest Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices. Much less than the 48.5% who went to the cinema, an industry that, by the way, replaced opera in the heart of the Italian bourgeoisie at the beginning of the 20th century.
At the close of this information, Chalamet did not want to clarify his comment…