Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo sang this past Saturday at the famous Mayan site of Chichen Itza, despite complaints from Mexican archaeologists and cultural critics. The bearded Domingo, native to Spain but raised in Mexico, argued that the concert would do no damage to the ancient site, and that it was actually a tribute to the Mexican-Mayan culture.

“I began talking to ethnic Mayas in this grandiose city and I’m confident that the god Chac (the rain god) will pardon us and allow it,” Domingo told a news conference late Thursday.

Chac was not available for comments, as he was away in the sky using his lightning axe to create thunder.

Domingo, who was joined by Mexican singer Armando Manzanero and Puerto Rican soprano Ana Maria Martinez, sang to an audience of over 4,000 people while dressed up in a Mariachi outfit. He also tried to curry local favor by singing a duet in Mayan, a language which is still spoken by about a million people in the Yucatan area. The whole evening basically sounds magical.

The singers were dwarfed by the hulking mass of the site’s main pyramid, eerily illuminated in red against a black sky, and the performance began with Mayan-style music from by The Monumental Chorus of the Mayab, accompanied by Indian drums. Domingo and Martinez also joined in a thundering, majestic tribute to the Mayan ruins in “The Silver Moon of Chichen Itza.” The piece by Lorena Tassinari, is called “a kind of Mayan hymn.”

“Thundering” and “majestic” are adjectives that we usually only apply to our thighs or to stampeding caribou. Neither of which have anything to do with Placido Domingo! Or cultural heritage, although apparently no one cares about that, anymore.

Archaeologists and activists have complained that concerts like Saturday’s expose sites to additional damage and degrade their cultural significance by treating them as mere backdrops. For present-day Mayas like Amadeo Cool May, who hosts a Mayan-language radio program, the concert “is an event for foreigners who come here on vacation. It is something completely alien to the Mayas, because of the ticket prices and the type of music.”

But wait, the concert planners have a really good excuse!

Jorge Esma, who is organizing the concert for the Yucatan state government, counters that non-ticket holders can watch it for free on local television, and says the Mayan temples will be well protected. The government has required light stage structures, forbidden anything from being anchored into ancient stones, and will have experts on hand to evaluate the impact on the 1,200-year-old temples.

See, crybabies? They’re not even going to hack chunks out of the ancient stone temple!

Here’s a video of Domingo caterwauling in front of the pyramid, if you’re feeling like a bit o’ opera:

Placido Domingo to sing in Maya at Mexico pyramids [AFP]
Mexicans boo Mayan pyramids concert by Great Tenor [AP]