Feature About Sexual Assault
On Saturday, July 21, the Twin Cities Arts Reader ran a feature that I wrote about sexual misconduct in opera. This is the longest piece of journalism that I have ever written and without a doubt one of the most important.
I come to this topic as someone who’s been working in and around opera for more than a decade. I was a Regional Governor for the National Opera Association, I’ve written about opera domestically and abroad, and I’ve run Really Spicy Opera for 12 years. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are both huge problems that are damaging both to the art form and to the people involved. Lives, careers, relationships, and more are destroyed when people cross the lines between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
I don’t know what the next step will be in the unfolding of this story, but I do know that the problem is the tip of the iceberg. My thanks go out to the women who were willing to come forward and tell their stories, and most especially to the women who were willing to have their names be published. Let’s make this a better place for everyone who’s not an abusive %@#&.
