David Daniels performs within the title function of Handel’s Giulio Cesare on the Metropolitan Opera in 2007.
Jack Vartoogian/Getty Photographs
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Jack Vartoogian/Getty Photographs
David Daniels performs within the title function of Handel’s Giulio Cesare on the Metropolitan Opera in 2007.
Jack Vartoogian/Getty Photographs
David Daniels, one of many opera world’s most well-known countertenors, pleaded responsible alongside along with his husband Scott Walters on Friday in a Houston district court docket to drugging and raping a younger vocalist in 2010.
Plaintiff Samuel Schultz was a 23-year-old graduate scholar at Rice College in Houston, Texas, when he met met Daniels and Walters at a celebration following one in all Daniels’ performances on the Houston Grand Opera. The couple invited him to the residence the place they have been staying, and there he was sexually assaulted after a spiked drink brought on the younger singer to black out.
Daniels now faces eight years of probation for the second diploma felony, in addition to a requirement that he register as a intercourse offender for the remainder of his life. As well as, the singer is ordered to chorus from contact with Schultz. Walters faces the identical penalties.
“I’m glad that the defendants have acknowledged by their responsible pleas the reality of my traumatic expertise, and that this portion of my nightmarish ordeal has lastly concluded,” stated Schultz in an announcement shared with NPR. “I’m glad that they’re receiving punishments that the court docket deems to appropriately deal with the severity of their crimes.”
“We’re deeply relieved that the perpetrators of this despicable crime are lastly dealing with the results of their selections,” Schultz’s household stated in an announcement supplied to NPR. “This plea deal doesn’t undo the monstrous occasions that led to today, however we’re right here to like and assist Samuel immediately and ceaselessly. We additionally know in a felony authorized system as damaged as ours, victims not often get justice for themselves, and our ideas are with all victims of sexual violence.”
Daniels’ and Walters’ lawyer, Matt Hennessy, didn’t reply instantly to NPR’s request for remark.
Daniels initially denied the accusations by Schultz. “These allegations are utterly false,” the countertenor stated in an announcement despatched to NPR in October 2018, after Schultz went public along with his story in an interview with the New York Every day Information.
Opera homes around the globe canceled Daniels’ scheduled appearances as soon as the allegations broke about his sexual misconduct. For instance, Daniels was scheduled to sing Medoro within the San Francisco Opera’s June 2019 performances of Handel’s Orlando. The corporate eliminated him from the manufacturing in November 2018. The Metropolitan Opera in New York canceled Daniels’ contract to carry out in one other Handel opera, Agrippina, amid the allegations.
The singer additionally misplaced his job as a tenured professor of voice on the College of Michigan in 2020.
