Opera Australia Announces Lianna Haroutounian as Replacement for Tamar Iveri

Opera Australia announces their replacement for Tamar Iveri, the Georgian singer who was fired last week following Facebook comments she made in which she compared homosexuals with "faecal masses". Opera Australia, who describes Iveri's views as "unconscionable, released her from her contract to perform the role of Desdemona in their staging of Otello.

Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian will be Iveri's replacement. Opera Australia also said they are following the "same due process" they underwent with her role in Otello for her other contracts with the Opera.

Iveri made a Facebook post that was presented as an open letter to Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili after Christian Orthodox groups violently assaulted members of a gay pride march in Tbilsi in May. In the post Iveri wrote:

"I was quite proud of the fact how Georgian society spat at the parade ... 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 the west's 'faecal masses' in the mentality of the people by means of propaganda."

Later, Iveri claimed that the post, which has since been deleted, had been written by her husband.

But, in an interview that was made public by Georgian LGBTQIA, Iveri says she wrote the original post and also makes further homophobic comments:

"On that day, as readers might have noticed I was very agitated and absolutely sincere in expressing my opinions. at the end of the status I even apologised to readers if they had found it impolite. My agitation was caused by the turmoil and accidental or deliberate promotion, propaganda, which in those days was passing through the media. My friends were calling and telling me that children were talking about gay parade all day long and that they could not take that anymore. When we do not tell them what that (gay parade) is exactly, they surf the internet and ask us to take there."

Read the orginial article here.

Photo Credit: LiannaHaroutounian.com

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