Photo Credit: Nihal Demirci
Timothée Chalamet’s remarks about opera and ballet have rippled through the industry. But is the Oscar-nominated actor striking a chord for a reason?
Actor Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments on the arts have sparked controversy online, but they’ve also seemingly triggered an entire industry. However, was the Marty Supreme star speaking out of turn, or is there some truth buried in there that might be hitting a collective nerve?
Speaking with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey late last month during a town hall-style chat organized by Variety and CNN, Chalamet responded to a question posed by McConaughey. McConaughey asked if Chalamet had noticed a trend of Hollywood foregoing deeper storytelling to cater to the lower attention span of the modern moviegoer—highlighting Hollywood’s broader fears that people aren’t going to the movies like they used to.
To this, Chalamet responded: “I admire people—and I’ve done it myself, too, gone on a talk show and go, ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive, you know, we gotta keep this genre alive.’ And another part of me feels like, if people wanna see it—like Barbie, like Oppenheimer—they’re gonna go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it. And I don’t wanna be working in ballet or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though it’s like, ‘No one cares about this anymore.’ All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.”
But it’s an open secret that certain traditional Western art forms, including classical music, ballet, opera, and even more contemporary pastimes such as movie theaters, have been struggling financially over the last several years. This is in no small part due to the live event black hole that was the COVID-19 pandemic—but there’s more to it than that.
Classical music, for example, has seen a decline in attendance, particularly among the older generations. In fact, it’s the younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials who are doing the lion’s share of attending classical music concerts in a number of Western countries.
It’s also worth noting that Chalamet comes from a family of ballerinas. In a recent interview during his press circuit for Marty Supreme, he said, “My grandmother danced in the New York City Ballet, my mother danced in the New York City Ballet, my sister danced in the New York City Ballet. I grew up dreaming big backstage at the Koch Theater in New York.”
Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to assume that he’s actually speaking from a place of familiarity, rather than just making an off-the-cuff dig at the ballet and opera industries. And it’s not like no one in the industry is agreeing with him; journalist and former opera singer Billy Binion wrote a piece outlining exactly why he believes Chalamet is right.
“I used to work at an opera company. Every sane person in the industry knows it’s toast. It bleeds money and is kept alive by a few rich donors—many of them very old—because people do not go. The Met is begging Saudi Arabia for money. It’s grim,” wrote Binion. “Some things are not up for debate, and it is beyond silly that there is ongoing international furor that someone said a very benign fact. I need a lot of people to kindly get a grip.”
Meanwhile, retired American Ballet Theatre (ABT) dancer Misty Copeland, who became the first Black principal ballerina in ABT history a decade ago, pointed out that it is “often mistaken when something is popular that it’s meaningful or impactful.”
“There’s a reason that the opera and ballet have been around for over 400 years,” she said, adding that both access and opportunity can “change your life.”
“That’s the work that I’ve been doing my whole career is to bring more people into it,” Copeland explained. “So that people do understand the importance and the relevance of it in our communities and our culture, and you see it reflected everywhere.”
“[Chalamet] wouldn’t be an actor and have the opportunities he has as a movie star if it weren’t for opera and ballet and their relevance in that medium,” she added. “So all of these mediums have a space, and we shouldn’t be comparing them.”
Copeland actually worked with Chalamet recently on a promotion campaign for Marty Supreme, in a collaborative Instagram post back in November.
Ballet and opera organizations have been speaking out on the controversy, including The Metropolitan Opera, The Los Angeles Opera, The Paris Opera, The Vienna State Opera, The Royal Ballet and Opera, The Seattle Opera, and some New York City Ballet dancers, including Megan Fairchild and Sara Mearns.
Even singer and rapper Doja Cat posted a TikTok calling Chalamet out for his remarks—though she later deleted the post and admitted she had “never been to a ballet” or “seen an opera,” and that she was just “virtue signaling.”
So is there truth in what Chalamet said? Perhaps, but he’s also admitted—and even admitted in the same statement—that he felt the same way about encouraging people to go to the movie theater. In a broader sense, the controversy speaks more to the state of the arts as a whole in the Western world and the overarching concern surrounding the artificial intelligence boom.
