(Credit: Anais Briot)

French soprano Chloé Briot has filed a complaint for the alleged sexual harassment.

The repeated incidents allegedly took place between October 2019 and February 2020 during a contemporary production of  Joël Pommerat and Francesco Filidei’s opera “L’Inondation.” The opera was commissioned by l’Opéra-Comique in Paris, as the co-production with l’Opéra de Rennes and the Angers-Nantes Opéra.

Briot, who performed the title role, claims that her partner onstage had repeatedly taken advantage of the two scenes of intimacy between their two characters. After the initial performances at the l’Opéra-Comique in the fall 2019, the production continued at the Opéra de Rennes on January 15, 16, and 18, 2020. Per Briot’s claims, during the second performance in the run the sexually aggressive behaviour took place.

“My colleague onstage took advantage of our two scenes together. During the first scene he groped my right breast. I tried to curl up so he couldn’t do it again. During the second scene, he violently spread my legs, by putting his head between them, in a motion that insinuated oral sex. At another performance, he whispered to my ear ‘I want to hurt you.’”

Briot informed the Director of l’Opéra de Rennes Matthieu Rietzler about the incident right after the performance. In the statement to La Lettre du musicien, Rietzler explained that he received Briot the next day and heard her testimony. Rietzler said that he had taken steps to keep the singers apart as much as possible. Alain Surrans, director of the Angers-Nantes Opéra, stated that he had taken the same approach as Rietzler.

However, Chloé Briot claims that the Angers-Nantes Opéra did not keep the promise about the protection. “Everything that I was promised, I was not given,” says Briot. “Alain Surrans had obviously not been informed despite my request. I was alone in front of my attacker, whom I found every night on stage,” added Briot.

Olivier Mantei, Director of l’Opéra-Comique in Paris confirmed that Briot was hired for the re-run of the opera in the 2023-24 season. “There was not a complaint at the time of my decision,” further explained Mantei. The director of l’Opéra-Comique added that the house must not interfere with the legal process, but protect the singers. “However, it would be impossible to cast the two singers together again in the production,” added Mantei.

The investigation has been opened.