Cape Verdean popular singer Cesaria Evora won’t be able to perform onstage because of her weakened health, Yerevan Perspectives festival manager Sona Hovhannisyan told PanARMENIAN.Net.

According to Ms. Hovhannisyan, on the evening of September 23, the singer’s managers sent letters to representatives of all countries her concerts were scheduled in, informing about her weakened health and inability to perform.

Cesaria Evora’s concert organizers will later decide on possible replacement, by inviting another musician to perform in Evora’s stead.

Recently, the star had arrived in Paris in a state of great weakness and, “unable to complete a planned series of French concerts, had decided to bring her career to a close.”

Cesaria Evora, born August 27, 1941 in the port town of Mindelo on the Cape Verde island of Sao Vicente, is a notable folk singer. She is known as the “barefoot diva” because of her propensity to appear on stage without shoes in support of the homeless and poor women and children of her country.

Long known as the queen of the morna, a soulful genre (related with the Portuguese fado) sung in Creole-Portuguese, she mixes her sentimental folk tunes filled with longing and sadness with the acoustic sounds of guitar, cavaquinho, violin, accordion, and clarinet.