Paris National Opera Ditches Classics Including The Nutcracker To ‘Make Room For Minorities’
The Paris Opera – founded over 350 years ago by King Louis XIV – will abandon classic shows including The Nutcracker and Swan Lake to “make room for minorities.”
Under pressure from Black Lives Matter activists, the historic opera and ballet company acquiesced to the demands of its “black and mixed-race employees” who “published a manifesto this summer questioning the inclusion of minorities within the institution.”
The shows that will “undoubtedly disappear from the repertoire,” explains the opera house’s new director Alexander Neef, are the programs Le Lac des cygnes or “Swan Lake,” Casse-Noisette or “The Nutcracker,” and the ballet La Bayadère.
Neef continued, adding “that won’t be enough,” for “deleting is useless if we do not learn the lessons of history.”
“To succeed in a profound renovation, so that in ten years, minorities are better represented at the Opera, a real reflection was needed to external personalities for the sake of increased objectivity, greater freedom of speech,” he added.
