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.
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