Opera Kelowna presents the first half of their 2-part studio production, The Queen in Me. With a cleverly comical critique of how race, gender, and sexuality are portrayed in opera, this production gives voice to characters who’ve wept, raged, and died onstage for centuries—now it’s their turn to speak.
Combining comedy, drama, and opera, The Queen In Me is a tour de force created and performed by Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野. One of Canada’s most exciting and innovative sopranos, Teiya Kasahara (they/he) takes the stage as one of opera’s most famously complex characters, the Queen of the Night. But the character interrupts their normal performance of vengeance-via-vocal-pyrotechnics to look back at what Mozart has made of her in The Magic Flute. From there, the audience becomes part of the show as they meet characters from Puccini’s La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Turandot, and Manon Lescaut; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor; Verdi’s Macbeth and Rigoletto; and R. Strauss’ Salome. Each character delves further into what opera has historically demanded of its women, both as characters and the artists who portray them.
This Opera Kelowna presentation is the Western Canadian premiere of the Theatre Gargantua/Amplified Opera / Canadian Opera Company / Nightwood Theatre co-production. It is performed with a local string ensemble under the musical direction of Rosemary Thomson. More information on the show’s creation and performance history is available here.
