Tamar Iveri, the Georgian opera singer who came under fire for making homophobic comments in a public letter to Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili, has cancelled her planned apology show, which was intended to raise money for LGBT rights organisations.
In June, Iveri was released from her contract with Opera Australia due to the remarks she had made in the letter, which she posted on her Facebook page. In the letter, the singer praised Georgian citizens who spat at an LGBT pride parade. It read in part:
“I was quite proud of the fact how Georgian society spat at the parade, organized by your team.
“Often, in certain cases, it is necessary to break jaws in order to be appreciated as a nation in the future, and to be taken into account seriously.
“Please, stop vigorous attempts to bring West’s ‘faecal masses’ in the mentality of the people by means of propaganda.”
Iveri was cast in Opera Australia’s Sydney production of ‘Othello’ earlier this year, but the company confirmed that she would no longer be featured in the production after her comments came to light. Opera Australia posted in a statement on their Facebook page that they felt Iveri’s stated remarks were “unconscionable”.
The singer had scheduled an apology concert to take place yesterday on National Coming Out Day, but the event failed to materialize.
Irakli Vacharidze, head of LGBT rights group Identoba, posted on the group’s Facebook page that the concert did not go forward because Iveri had recently given birth. He stated that another apology concert will take place in December.
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