“Cheers, Timmy!” Head of the Royal Ballet and Opera thanks Chalamet for ‘fantastic’ increase in sales | Timothée Chalamet

The head of the UK’s Royal Ballet and Opera has thanked Hollywood actor Timothée Chalamet for inadvertently boosting ticket sales and engagement with his high-profile criticism of the art form last month.

While promoting his Oscar-winning film Marty Supreme in March, the star expressed relief that he was working in film, rather than opera or ballet, “where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about that anymore.'”

Chalamet, whose mother and grandmother both worked at the ballet, added: “All respect to all the ballet and opera workers there.” The backlash to his assessment of the art form was swift and clear, with stars including Jamie Lee Curtis and Whoopi Goldberg criticizing him, while many opera and ballet organizations criticized his comments.

Speaking to The Times, the RBO’s Alex Bird described the public reaction as “absolutely fantastic” and said he was glad his organization had not followed similar institutions in rebuking Chalamet.

“I thought it was important not to make some kind of flattering response to Chalamet,” he said. “We simply said, ‘Take a look at what we’re doing, mate’ – for example, the fact that the bulk of our audience by age is 20 to 30 years old.

“And you know what? Our post got two and a half million reactions and half a million shares, just on Instagram. And our ticket sales got an immediate boost. So, cheers, Timmy!”

Several entities turned Chalamet’s criticism into a promotion for their productions, including the Seattle Opera, which offered a discount on tickets to its production of Carmen if buyers used the code “TIMOTHEE.”

Luca Guadagnino, Chalamet’s two-time director, who now presents operas in Italy, defended the actor, saying the response to his comments was disproportionate.

Speaking to the Italian newspaper La Stampa before the premiere of The Death of Klinghoffer in Florence, the director expressed his bewilderment that “one of [single] The comment could become a planetary debate.”

Guadagnino continued: “He is young, intelligent, sensitive and fears that cinema will become marginal. That is why every form of imagination must be nurtured. We must unite the arts, not separate them.”