Less than a month after she was fired
over homophobic remarks, Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri announced plans to
perform a National Coming Out Day concert to benefit LGBT groups.
Writing on Facebook, Iveri cheered the
violence that marred a Gay Pride parade in the Georgian capital of
Tbilisi.
“I was quite proud of the fact how
Georgian society spat at the parade,” she allegedly said in a
Facebok post that has since been deleted. “Please, stop vigorous
attempts to bring the west's 'fecal masses' in the mentality of the
people by means of propaganda.”
Opera Australia fired Iveri from its
upcoming production of Otello and La Monnaie Opera in Brussels
replaced her in its 2015 production of Un Ballo in Maschera.
“Opera Australia believes the views
as stated to be unconscionable,” the opera house said on Facebook.
According to Classicalite.com,
Iveri's October 11 concert is “dedicated to the victims of all
kinds of violence.”
Iveri explained that her husband, whom
she described as “very religious,” was responsible for the
offending comments.
“For my entire career I have been
working with gay people and some of them are very dear friends. All
of them can confirm that I [have] never [expressed] a word that might
associate me with homophobic ideas,” she said on Facebook.