Whaaaat?!
While I haven't followed NW in some time (I did listen to Imaginaerum when it came out) and don't really call myself a fan anymore, I did read about the substitute singer thing and how Anette became upset about it. What I'm surprised about is the way she quit in the middle of a tour - it gives me the impression it was a bit of a hasty decision and she'll regret it later. But who knows, there might've been growing tension inside the band that built up to this point, not to mention the constant Tarja comprarisons made by upset fanboys?
I understand that it may seem like a sign of lack of trust when your band mates get someone to substitute you, but as far as I heard, the band were at the venue already when Anette was taken to the hospital and there must've been a certain pressure not to cancel the show, especially a sold out one when the crowd are already there. Of course they should've asked or at least informed her about the decision but maybe she couldn't be reached.
My cousin knows Sami Vänskä (the ex-bassist of NW) personally and according to him, Sami didn't like the lack of communication related to his firing (their manager told him he was let go). The same thing happened with Tarja with the open letter and I think it has something to do with this situation as well. Being a Finn myself, I know we aren't the best to admit problems or talk about them, but I seriously think the guys in the band need to do something if they don't want to have a revolving door of singers.
I did like Anette's voice and, hate me if you want, I preferred the tone of her voice to Tarja's. While Tarja is extremely talented, the opera style of singing is a bit too much for my taste nowadays, but while Anette doesn't have the most unique voice in the world, her style is more tolerable for me. The Anette haters should also remember that Tarja started singing in a less operatic way on Century Child as Tuomas started to lose his interest in the operatic stuff and it was a natural continuation to hire a singer with a different kind of voice. And if we go back to the very beginning, Tuomas didn't even plan on hiring an opera singer, but Tarja happened to be one and that's what they went with.
The reason I'm not really a fan of NW anymore is that my taste has moved on and away from this mega-bombastic symphonic metal - the orchestrations sound nice but it feels like they're just meant to cover the weaknesses of the songwriting. I vaguely recall Tuomas saying that they will try to make the next album different as they've kind of hit the roof in terms of epicness and I hope that's true and this change of singers will further make them focus more on songwriting again, instead of building a huge pseudo-symphony.
Looks like this thing is turning into a media circus here in Finland, just like it did when Tarja was fired!
Well, it's natural when something like this happens to the most successful metal band and (active) native band singing in English in the country. Sorry for such a long post but I just wanted to share my 2 cents on this.