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The New York Met fires Yusif Eyvazov for his support of blackface and his position on the war in Ukraine
As The New York Times published yesterday, the New York Metropolitan Opera ha fired al tenor Yusif Eyvazov of the production of Tosca that will be on stage soon, starting on March 30.
Replaced by Matthew Polenzani, the mayor of the coliseum, Peter Gelb, has made a statement in which he affirms that, he expected, he himself would withdraw from the production, but that he made the decision to fire him after his racist comments criticizing the soprano Angel Blue when she denounced the blackface of a production of Aida at the Verona Arena. Comments to which other classical personalities also joined, from renowned Italian sopranos to Spanish theater directors. All of them deleted their comments from the social network, almost immediately. Among Eyvazov’s, he said:
“This world is full of double standards. You cancel your performance for this reason, but no one talks when a mezzo-soprano puts a beard on her face and sings Don Jose…just gross (adding a throwing up emoji).” Or “One more thing… the first performance of this Aida took place on 18.06.2022… why didn’t you cancel your astray immediately after June 17? But a month later… Angel Blue this is disgusting too (adding thumbs down emoji).”
On the other hand, Gelb also pointed out that the soprano hired for four of these functions of Tosca It is the Ukrainian Liudmyla Monastyrska, whom they did not want to disrespect by hiring Eyvazov.
