Transgender singers IN OPERA
Identity as a theme is not new to opera. It has been, and is being, explored by the art form both onstage and off, in ways both narrative and non-narrative. Identity, specifically as it relates to preconceived notions of binary identities within gender, is now being openly challenged in opera. Does Carmen always have to be a sexy vamp? Is it a necessary given that Don Giovanni be a macho lady-killer? These questions sit close to (if not within) the heart of how we perceive and understand opera and force us to re-examine long-held, frequently unconscious notions of identity and presentation. They cause us to rethink ideas relating to our understanding or experience of opera and its broader place within 21st-century culture.
This re-examination was underlined by the casting of baritone Lucia Lucas as Don Giovanni at Tulsa Opera earlier this year. Assigned male at birth (AMAB), Lucas, studied voice at Cal State Sacramento before doing graduate work at Chicago College of Performing Arts. The baritone (who transitioned in 2013) worked in regional U.S. houses, then moved to Germany a decade ago. There, she has appeared with Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in (Escamillo), (Marcello) and (Varlaam) and at Wuppertaler Bühnen Opernhaus, the villains in and Hagen in . She has also sung Wotan in with Theater Magdeburg Opernhaus, and will make her English National Opera debut this autumn in Offenbach’s . “I came out of a big program; I didn’t have enough work,” she says, “so I went to Germany, and worked my butt off, and it’s why I have a career: I didn’t give up.”
