
The French mezzo-soprano Katia Ledoux took to social media following her booing during a performance at Vienna’s Volksoper.
Beat on the ground: On New Year’s Eve, the French mezzo-soprano Katia Ledoux was booed while performing the role of Orlofsky in the Vienna Volksoper’s Die Fledermaus. Ledoux took to social media to reflect candidly following the occurrence. She noted that the Volksoper’s production featured a rewrite of Orlofsky as a nihilistic, “deeply depressed and tragically closeted” gay character. Ledoux commented on the involvement of Viennese audiences in their city’s opera scene, engaging in online forums and often sending letters and emails to performers.
The trends: For many opera singers, being booed is a rite of passage. Yet, that doesn’t lessen its sting. In 1998, the soprano Renée Fleming was booed at La Scala during a performance of Lucrezia Borgia. Fleming described the experience in her autobiography as the worst night of her operatic life, which led to a nearly career-ending crisis of confidence.
Katia Ledoux, who identifies as big, Black, polyam, queer and feminist on social media, pondered in her post not only whether she had done anything wrong during her performance of Orlofsky, but whether or not to her Viennese audiences, she herself was wrong. We here at Ludwig Van are cheering her on.
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