Disgraced Georgian soprano aims to make amends for hurt caused to LGBTI community.

Tamar Iveri, the disgraced soprano who was forced to withdraw from Opera Australia’s production of Verdi’s Otello last June, will perform a charity concert tonight in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The performance will mark the first stage in what the singer must hope will be the rebuilding of her international career following the worldwide furore over a lengthy homophobic letter that was posted on her Facebook page last year.

The letter, bearing Iveri’s name, was addressed to the then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili criticising his condemnation of an attack by Orthodox Christians on a LGBTI parade in the Georgian capital in May 2013. In it, LGBTI people were described as “deviants” and homosexuality was referred to as part of the “faecal mass” being foisted on Georgia by the West. Support was also expressed in graphic terms for those taking part in the violence. In a series of conflicting statements, Iveri subsequently claimed that either her husband wrote the offending post or that the couple had worked on it in tandem. Either way, following Limelight’s breaking of the story back in June and the subsequent outcry, the Georgian soprano was forced to exit her contracts with Brussells’ La Monnaie and other opera companies.

On returning to her home country of Georgia, on October 9 this year Iveri announced the foundation of Safe Society – an organisation whose aim is “to provide medical, psychological, and legal assistance, as well as rehabilitation, for victims of all forms of violence including domestic violence, sexual orientation-motivated violence, race-motivated violence, religious violence, and animal abuse”.  Her first planned concert was scheduled for October 11 (National Coming Out Day) but was cancelled apparently as a result of the soprano having recently had a baby.

Tonight’s concert at Tbilisi’s historic Rustaveli Theatre will see Iveri joined by Georgian tenor Irakli Kakhidze, baritone George Gagnidze and the German violinist Sophie Moser.

Irakli Vacharadze, Executive Director of Identoba, the Georgian LGBTI advocacy organisation whose actions helped expose the offending remarks in the first place, stated that, “Mrs. Iveri has made numerous attempts to restore LGBT community’s trust towards her. She has made public apology to the community, has established a charity fund to fight all forms of violence and hopes to organize a charity concert on December 10, 2014 dedicated to anti-violence measures… Mrs. Iveri now has come to fully understand that solidarity to LGBT human rights is important and valuable. Please note that we are deeply sorry that the past incidents have taken such a toll on her career and we consider that everyone is entitled to forgiveness and acceptance.”

How the concert will play out in the wider LGBTI community remains to be seen. Australian LGBTI rights advocate Simon Hunt, aka Pauline Pantsdown told ArtsHub earlier this year that he had doubts about her sincerity. “My inclination is follow the lead of the Georgian LGBT activists – although doubting her sincerity, they see the proposed Tblisi benefit concert as being potentially useful in regards to the homophobia that they face in Georgian society… From my perspective, I understand their wariness – Iveri is simply not to be trusted. Her ongoing, constant denials that she has actually been sacked by three opera companies; and the unbelievable and ever-changing story as to the authorship of her offensive comments all add up to an essentially dishonest person who still sees these issues, at the core, being all about her career. Personally, I think that her comments last year were beyond redemption. I would never pay to see her on a stage, and I would resent any government-funded arts company paying her with my tax dollars.”

The Georgians appear to be taking a more holistic approach. “Hate speech only incites hatred between diverse social groups and worsens the already difficult situation for marginalized individuals,” said Identoba. “Tamar Iveri agreed that violence against human right defenders is undoubtedly harmful and that hate speech is unacceptable in public life. She expressed her deep concern for the pain that her Facebook statement caused to the LGBT individuals in Georgia and worldwide.”

And as Iveri said at her press conference in October: “This is to apologise and to express support”.