Ljuba Kazarnovskaya Gets Blacklisted By Azerbaijan Foreign Minister

"'Lyubov [sic] Kazarnovskaya has violated Azerbaijan’s law on 'State border' and illegally visited our country’s territories occupied by Armenia,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told APA-Economics while commenting on illegal visit of Russian opera-singer Lyubov Kzarnovskaya to Azerbaijan’s occupied territories. According to him, this person will be added into the list of “undesired persons” as a result of relevant investigation: 'Kazarnovskaya’s speeches in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories promote Armenia’s aggression and occupation against Azerbaijan, bloody ethnic cleansing committed against Azerbaijanis in the occupied territories and Armenia, while the art figures should serve peace and truce. Speaking about establishment of Music Center in the occupied territories, Kazarnovskaya must know that as a result of aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan and barbarism committed in the occupied territories, Azerbaijani people’s material and cultural heritage, as well as Karabakh music school underwent destruction and devastation.'" [Source] Read more about the soprano, watch a performance and interview, after the jump.

The Mystique of the Missing Russian Diva Voices

Every few years a soprano comes along from the Russian landscape that has a big and steely sound to take on the most challenging music of Giuseppe Verdi. She then is proclaimed the "Verdi soprano" for which the opera world has been impatiently waiting. Then after singing a few seasons at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and Covent Garden, that artist slips into obscurity or suffers major vocal decline. Here are some examples:

Galina Gorchakova	Ljuba Kazarnovskaya
"Pace, pace mio Dio"	"Ecco l'orrido"
La Forza del Destino	Un Ballo in Maschera

Maria Guleghina	Marina Mescheriakova
"Santo di Patria"	"Tu che le vanità"
Attila	Don Carlo

And will this latest Russian export to be proclaimed the leading diva of Verdi be the next victim?

Marina Poplavskaya

"Mia madre aveva una povera ancella"

Otello