The Metropolitan Opera and London’s Royal Ballet and Opera have hit out at Timothee Chalamet after he declared “no one cares” about their arts.
The Marty Supreme actor recently took part in a conversation with his Interstellar co-star Matthew McConaughey at the University of Texas and caused upset when he dismissed both ballet and opera while discussing the trend of movies placing their “biggest action set pieces up front”.
Citing Frankenstein as an example of a popular movie that could “pull people in” without “extraordinarily fast” pacing, 30-year-old Timothee said: “It does take you having to wave a flag of, ‘Hey, this is a serious movie,’ or something, and some people do want to be entertained and quickly.
“I’m really right in the middle, Matthew. I admire people, and I’ve done it myself, who go on a talk show and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to keep movie theatres alive, we’ve gotta keep this genre alive,’ and another part of me feels like if people want to see it, like Barbie, like Oppenheimer, they’re going to go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it.
“I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore.’ All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there.”
Although the audience laughed, the Oscar-nominated star seemingly realised immediately that his remark could be upsetting.
He quipped: “I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason.”
And now, the Metropolitan Opera shared a video on TikTok featuring conductors and musicians rehearsing for a New York City opera performance, as well as staff working backstage creating sets, costumes and wigs and carrying out other duties.
The video said: “All respect to the opera (and ballet) people out there.”
The clip was captioned: “This one’s for you, Timothee Chalamet… [watching eyes emoji]”
Meanwhile, the Royal Ballet and Opera urged the Wonka actor to pay them a visit to see just how powerful their performances are.
They wrote on Instagram alongside performance footage: “Every night at the Royal Opera House, thousands of people gather for ballet and opera.
“For the music. For the storytelling. For the sheer magic of live performance.
“If you’d like to reconsider, @tchalamet, our doors are open.”
Grammy Award-winning opera singer Isabelle Leonard hit out at Timothee’s comments.
She commented on the Met’s post: “[I feel] shocked that someone so seemingly successful can be so ineloquent and narrow-minded in his views about art while considering himself as artist as I would only imagine one would as an actor.”
Mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny added: “What a disappointing take. There is nothing more impressive than the magic of live theatre, ballet and opera.
“We should be trying to uplift these art forms and these artists and come together across disciplines to do that.
“The impact of these mediums are long-lasting and life-changing.”
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