After selling out its world premiere along with Canadian Opera Company in June, Nightwood Theatre, Amplified Opera and Theatre Gargantua are thrilled to be touring The Queen In Me by interdisciplinary artist Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野 (they/them), accompanied by pianist David Eliakis (he/him). Combining comedy, drama, and opera, this electrifying show explores the many ways that race, gender, and sexuality are policed in the opera industry. Through the lens of The Magic Flute’s iconic Queen of the Night, the show reclaims space for the multitudes of women, trans, and non-binary individuals excluded from the stage, daring to imagine bold new possibilities for the future of the art form and beyond.
The Queen In Me features a range of dramatic arias from some of the world’s most well-loved operas: Puccini’s La Bohème,Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and Manon Lescaut; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor; Verdi’s Macbeth and Rigoletto; R. Strauss’ Salome; and Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Approaching the climax of one of the world’s most famous arias, the Queen of the Night abruptly breaks the fourth wall to speak out against the monochromatic strictures that keep opera rooted in the standards of the past. Combining comedy, drama, and plenty of opera, this vibrant show by interdisciplinary artist Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野 (they/them) gives a voice to the Queen of the Night, who explores how the rigid conventions of race, gender, and sexuality in opera prevent one of the greatest art forms from reaching its kaleidoscopic potential.
Kasahara began creating The Queen In Me, during the Emerging Creators Unit at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre during the 2016-2017 season. They took inspiration from their career as a professional opera singer alongside their lived experiences as a queer, feminist, person of color to re-imagine the Queen of the Night, one of opera’s most infamous “fallen women,” and places her in the center of a metaphor for silenced and discarded women everywhere. The curtain rises mid-performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, at the beginning of the Queen of the Night’s highly anticipated aria, Der Hölle Rache.
NOW ON TOUR Sep 20-30, 2023 NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE AZRIELI STUDIO OTTAWA, O
Labels:
