(Credit: Sarah Katharina)

Elīna Garanča has opened up about the #Metoo movement openly criticizing the effects in a new interview with the telegraph.

Ahead of her performances at the Royal Opera House in a new production of “Samson et Dalila,” the mezzo told the publication she was shocked there were no more dirty jokes and no more compliments.

She said, “nobody gives compliments anymore, nobody makes a dirty joke, nobody hugs you. I find it absurd that we must have a ‘movement coach’ on the set to tell us how to hug. Excuse me, but I know how to hug!”

She added that while she admired the victims but also noted that she was in circumstances of impropriety and knew how to handle the situations. She said, “I’ve had experiences, situations that you would consider… tricky. But I never dwelt on them. More than one [man] has put a hand on my knee. But I am a woman who will put the hand back, say ‘that’s my line’, then walk on. There might be a colleague who tries to stick a tongue into you. OK. He tries it twice? I bite it. It does not happen again.”

She also added that she would never let an incident like it define who she is and said, “I never made these experiences so important that they became my luggage to carry through the years. I found far more interesting things in my life to put my energy into.”

The mezzo also told the Telegraph that many colleagues who may have tried to be inappropriate have learned to respect her. She said, “many of those who tried [it on] with me have grown to respect me and I continue working with them. Our communication has become respectful, artistic, and profound. Excuse me, but I lived almost 40 years before #MeToo. I lived through times of wild, free expression and I cannot rewrite who I am now, because my personality was formed in a different time.”

The mezzo is set to return to the Salzburg Festival and will also make her Arena di Verona debut this summer.