Opera Australia have officially parted ways with soprano Tamar Iveri, following a public relations clusterfuck when a homophobic post published on the singer’s Facebook wall went viral.
Last year, Iveri published an angry open letter to the president of her home country, Georgia, shaming him for allowing a western-style gay pride parade in the city of Tsilbisi, and using various colourful body fluid-related metaphors to describe gay people.
When Australian opera magazine Limelight unearthed the letter over the weekend, outraged fans began calling for Iveri to step down, and threatening to cancel their Opera Australia subscriptions in protest.
In a statement released today, Opera Australia declared Iveri’s comments “unconscionable”, and announced that she will no longer be appearing in the upcoming Sydney production of Otello.
Iveri is also due to appear in a Melbourne production of Tosca in the coming months, but it is unknown at this time whether or not this will continue.
