Angela Gheorghiu is doubling down on the incident in Korea in a recent interview with People Person in Bucharest.

The Romanian diva was asked about the incident where she interrupted her colleague’s encore shouting “Excuse me. It’s a performance. It’s not a recital. Respect me” during the performance. She said that she has always respected the flow of an opera performance and even cited conductors who never allowed encores like Georg Solit, James Levine, and Arturo Toscanini.

She said, “I have been singing in Korea for 24 years now. In 34 years of career, together with all my colleagues, I had a principle, a backbone and a respect for opera. The opera performance must have fluency. In the theater, an actor does not repeat a monologue in a performance, because it immediately spoils the flow of the story. For me, the most important thing in opera is the story. Opera is a stage play and should not be interrupted. There were great conductors who did not even allow applause during a performance and we are talking here about Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, Georg Solti, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta or James Levine who did not allow and did not conceive encores during a performance.”

She added that she had been asked to do an encore and flat out said no.

“In Korea, I was asked by the conductor before the second act if I would like to encore my aria, ‘Vissi d’arte,’ and the answer was categorically no. I too had huge applause at ‘Vissi d’arte,’ but I respected the artistic principle to the end.”

Gheorghiu added, “We discussed this very thing before these shows and agreed with the production team and the conductor that there would be no encores. Technically speaking, I enter the stage immediately after my colleague’s aria, I have to take a step, or, if he encores, I have to go backstage, I take a step back to wait for him.”

The diva also took a dig at Jonas Kaufmann and the incident in 2016 when following an encore of “E Lucevan le Stelle,” Gheorghiu did not come out and the tenor told the audience “Non abbiamo il soprano.” Kaufmann sang in Puccini-like strains before the opera was stopped and had to restart. She also inferred to helping Kaufmann elevate his career to stardom.

Gherghiou said, “In Vienna, I went right into the booth, because it was close to the stage, only after the encore of my colleague – the tenor whom I helped a lot in his career over time, and who had told me during the rehearsals that he wouldn’t accept encores – there was no more applause. Not at all. So I had to run out of the booth to get on stage. The conductor, or in these cases the conductor together with the tenor, decides whether to resume the aria. And the reactions were not spontaneous, but pre-programmed. Also, let me tell you a secret: an encore never sounds better than the first time you sang the aria. In a personal concert, which you’re only invited to do if you’re a big name, you can do as many encores as you want, it’s your concert. But in a show, you respect the score.”

The soprano also incorrectly stated that both tenors have only encored when she is on stage. She said, “It is also worth noting that these tenors have never done encores on stage during opera performances, except in those where they sang with me.”

Kaufmann made history alongside Sondra Radvanovsky in 2019 when both stars made encores during a performance of “Tosca” at the Teatro Real de Madrid.

In the interview, Gheorghiu also spoke about turning down roles and the fact that she has never suffered vocal issues unlike some of her colleagues who ended up in doctors for accepting roles that were too heavy for their voices. She also spoke about the modern diva and addressed the fact that many have called her difficult. She said, “Yes, I turned down more than half of the show proposals, especially the modern ones. I have nothing against them if they respect the story, the libretto, but if this modernism becomes aberrant, I don’t want to take part in it.”

The interview also goes into the importance of recordings and leaving a legacy behind, her work with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra during the pandemic, and the importance of education in schools. You can read the entire interview here.