British Opera Company Cancels ‘Tosca’ Collaboration in Israel After Criticism

The Royal Ballet and Opera, one of Britain’s most prominent arts institutions, has canceled a collaboration with the Israeli Opera to stage “Tosca” in Tel Aviv next year. The company’s chief executive announced the decision to the staff on Friday, noting that an open letter criticizing its approach to Israel and the war in Gaza had been circulating through the ranks.

“We have made the decision that our new production of ‘Tosca’ will not be going to Israel,” Alex Beard, the Royal Ballet and Opera’s chief executive, told the staff.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Ballet and Opera said on Tuesday that the Israeli Opera had approached it last year about staging “Tosca” in a new production by the London company’s director of opera, Oliver Mears.

Mears’s “Tosca” will premiere in London in September, and the companies had not signed any contracts, the spokeswoman said.

But as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza — where more people have been dying of malnutrition — has worsened since Israel restricted aid following the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, the company’s attitude to the collaboration seems to have changed. More than 60,000 Gazans have been killed since Israel began retaliating for the attacks, according to Gaza health officials. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed by Palestinian assailants in the 2023 attacks, and about 250 others were taken hostage.

The scale of the devastation in Gaza and the mounting global outcry over the Israeli government’s actions have pushed Britain and other European countries to be more vocal in their condemnation of Israel in recent weeks.

The Royal Ballet and Opera did not criticize Israel in explaining its decision, and said that it had decided to pull the production before its board received the open letter. It cited “the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the region and the associated risks to the safety of our company members.”

Tensions over the war in Gaza had been escalating at the company since last month, when a dancer held up a Palestinian flag during the curtain call for “La Traviata.” Video of the moment that circulated on social media showed a scuffle between the dancer and a man who emerged from the wings and tried to grab the flag from the dancer’s hands. The letter signers identified the man trying to take the flag as Mears, the opera director.

Beard said in an emailed statement on Tuesday that the Royal Opera acknowledged and respected “the full range of views” on the war in Gaza. He was “appalled by the crisis in Gaza,” he said, but wanted the company’s stage to be free of individual political statements.

“It is at the heart of who we are that we recognize and respect the diversity of opinions among our colleagues and audiences,” he said.

That sentiment, however, does not wash with the 182 signees of the letter. “To call what is unfolding anything less than genocide is to ignore the overwhelming weight of evidence,” the letter says.

It criticized the Royal Ballet and Opera for already working with the Israeli Opera this summer to stage a production of “Turandot.” It noted that the Israeli Opera has offered free tickets to Israeli soldiers, whom the letter called “the very forces responsible for the daily killings of civilians in Gaza.”

The Israeli Opera did not respond to questions about the ticket program. It said in a statement that it had received the Royal Ballet and Opera’s decision “with deep regret,” adding that it planned to stage a different production of “Tosca” next year.

The signees also raised concerns about how the Royal Opera had approached the protest at the “Traviata” curtain call last month. The letter praised the protest as an “act of courage and moral clarity” and condemned Mears, adding that the action had “sent a clear message that any visible solidarity with Palestine would be met with hostility.”

And the signees questioned why the Royal Ballet and Opera had supported Ukraine, and its orchestra had the Ukrainian national anthem before performances after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, but had not taken a similar stance on the crisis in Gaza.

“We understood then that silence was unacceptable,” the signees wrote. “Why is it different now? Why is Palestinian suffering met with silence, while Ukrainian suffering was met with action? The double standard is deafening.”

Beard said that explicit political statements about Gaza were different from those in support of Ukraine, again noting that there was more diversity of opinions about Israel’s actions.

“Our support for Ukraine was aligned with the global consensus at the time,” he said. “As the world’s geopolitics have become more complex, our stance has changed to ensure that our actions reflect our purpose and values.”

The signees of the pro-Palestinian letter suggest that the Royal Ballet and Opera is picking and choosing its political causes based on social convenience.

But John Allison, the editor of the website Opera With Opera News, said a similar criticism could be levied against the letter’s authors: No similar statements have been made about other humanitarian crises, he said, and no similar open letter circulated when the British government was bombing Iraq two decades ago.

“Either through ignorance or latent antisemitism, these people are not making a distinction between Israeli opera and the Israeli government,” Allison said.

The Royal Ballet and Opera, he said, has not taken a strong stance on climate protests, either: It mostly seems to be trying to manage a public relations crisis and stave off an open revolt from its staff members.

He said he didn’t think the company’s management “has come out of this taking any sort of moral high ground,” he said, adding, “I suspect they’ve done the most ‘pragmatic’ thing. They have to do something to quiet down the protest.”

Alex Marshall contributed reporting from Edinburgh.