"The rising Southern California-bred soprano Angel Blue is having a smashing Vienna debut — except for an ugly encounter with a racist cab driver outside a Starbucks in the Austrian capital. Blue, who has sung several roles for Los Angeles Opera, where she trained in its Domingo-Thornton Young Artist program, was on break from rehearsals for Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia and needed a ride back to the venerable Theater an der Wien opera house. She hopped in a white Mercedes cab, according to the Viennese weekly magazine News, only to hear the driver snarl, 'I don't drive black women. Get out!''I did so and started to cry,' she told the publication, recalling the Nov. 10 incident. 'All I wanted in that moment was to get away from here.'" The news broke Wednesday under the headline, 'Scandal in Vienna: Taxi Driver Refuses to Transport Dark-Skinned Opera Singer.' The paper said she is 27. By then, says Blue's Beverly Hills attorney, Don Franzen, she had settled into her role, opening Feb. 17 and ending Tuesday, and has received a warm reception from the Viennese." [Source]
