I met yesterday with Ryan McDonald and Camille Rogers to discuss their new project, OperaQ, and its upcoming show Dido and Belinda.  The driving idea is that opera needs a space for “queer people to tell queer stories to queer people”.  Now I’m sure many peopl’s initial reaction would be close to mine along the lines of “surely there’s no shortage of gay people in the opera world?”; which is ,of course, true but not really the point.  Gender presentation in opera is highly conventional, both on and off the stage.  There are strong stereotypes about “masculine” heroes.  Can an overtly gay man get cast as Otello (or even Hadrian)?  There are equally strong stereotypes about how female singers should present.  Everybody is supposed to be glamorous à la Maria Callas, an attitude that was brilliantly taken apart in Teiya Kasahara’s Queer of the Night.  Transgender issues add another layer onto this where, paradoxically perhaps, operas traditions of cross dressing confine rather than create space for transgender expression.  So, opera, lots of queers but not much queerness?

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