Timothée Chalamet says nobody cares about opera any more. I used to agree

Timothée Chalamet’s exhausting Oscars campaign has hit a bump in the boulevard. He has managed to raise the ire of his own people – artistic folk – by giving heavy verbal side-eye to the opera and ballet worlds. I know, as a former arts editor, I’m on the wrong side of this tiff, but the truth is I know just how Chalamet feels: I struggled with opera for years.

But first, the incident that quickly went from soft chat with fellow thesp to “Chalamet’s Opera Controversy.” In an interview for Variety and CNN, broadcast on YouTube last month, Chalamet told Matthew McConaughey: “I don't want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it's like, 'Hey, keep this thing alive, even though, like, no one cares about this anymore’.”

Bomb exploded, McConaughey looked as slack jawed as anyone in Hollywood can these days, clearly amazed that an Oscar contender had said something spontaneous in public. Meanwhile, Chalamet dug in. “All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there,” he said, still arranging his “respect” face, then added, “I just lost 14 cents in viewership, I just took shots for no reason.”

Cue opera stars going seriously Gotterdammerung on Chalamet’s arse, as Wagner may not have put it. The Canadian mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny described his comments as a “disappointing take” – I’m not angry, I’m disappointed! – while the actor Jamie Lee Curtis asked in an Instagram story: “Why are any artists taking shots at any other artists?” Sub text: did playing the ping pong star Marty Supreme on screen spill over to real life?

Thank heavens for Seattle Opera, who found their funny bone, running a promotion on Instagram for an upcoming performance of Carmen. “All we have got to say is use promo code TIMOTHEE to save 14% off select seats for Carmen, through this weekend only. Timmy, you're welcome to use it too.” Thanks too to Chalamet’s girlfriend Kylie Jenner who responded by posting a picture of a broken fingernail (it’s a long story).

Meanwhile, reckoning all publicity is good publicity (even when it’s, like, really bad), the heads of British opera and ballet groups have invited Chalamet to see a show. La Juive, presumably, where the characters are thrown into a boiling cauldron – audience participation welcome!

Jokes aside, I have felt Timmy’s opera pain. My mother was a club singer and then an opera singer before she had us. She performed on the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks in the 1950s (winning the audience vote, losing the phone-in) and then joined the D’Oyly Carte and sang briefly in the chorus at Covent Garden. She didn’t make it as a solo soprano – although she had perfect pitch, her voice was too soft. She would say they couldn’t hear her in the cheap seats.

By the time I was five her opera career was mostly reduced to a couple of TDK-C90s featuring past recordings. When we were very little she sang with an amateur opera company where she played the title role in Puccini’s Soeur Angelica and the maid in Britten’s The Little Sweep; but she made it clear she was doing everyone else a favour and it didn’t last. She didn’t like to discuss her operatic past, but the relics were there to stumble upon: a publicity photo hiding behind a family shot on the sideboard, dusty sheet music in the piano stool, a couple of stage wigs in a bottom drawer.

I feel ashamed of my younger self now, but during that time her relationship to opera induced nothing but embarrassment in me. And no day was worse than Sunday when at mass she would sing the hymns in full operatic fervor, three times as loudly as anyone else. The pews around us would turn and stare and my brother and I would stand, eyes fixed on the prayer cushions on the floor.

It was the early 1980s, pop music was our life. I liked my voices male, raspy and preferably hung over a bass guitar or the chime of a Roland keyboard. More fool me, the last thing I wanted to hear was Maria Callas singing Carmen or a recording of my mum’s favourite, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, famous for showcasing the female voice.

Our mother would show willing and watch Top of the Pops with us, critiquing each voice as though she was auditioning the stars of the UK singles chart for a role at the Opera House. She was kinder to the men – she had time for George Michael and David Bowie – but I can still see her just-sucked-a-lemon expression as Madonna debuted Like a Virgin: “She’s off key! Does she know she’s off key?”

It wasn’t until years later, working on the arts desk of a newspaper, that I began to thaw, surrounded by enthusiastic critics who gave me much-needed notes. Like Chalamet, I was also lucky enough to be invited to the opera. Sometimes I took my mum. She liked explaining what was going on and began to talk about that period. I began to look forward to it, even love it (when it wasn’t Janacek). It became a thrill to think of people 200 years ago going to hear almost exactly the same thing I was.

Now my best friend has developed a mid-life passion for it too (well, sensibly, just the Italian ones). We plan to go to Finland this summer to see Lisette Oropesa sing Norma. Oh, OK; I guess there’s room in the car for a little one, Timmy…

Photograph by Patrick T. Fallon/ AFP via Getty Images