THE QUEEN IN ME

Past PERFORMANCES

Sep 20, 22, 23, 27, 29, & 30, 2023 NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE — Ottawa ON, Canada

Oct 18 & 19, 2022 BELFAST INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL — United Kingdom

Sep 22, 24, 25, 2022 MERIDIAN ARTS CENTRE — North York ON, Canada

June 2, 3, & 4, 2022 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY — Toronto ON, Canada

About The Queen In Me

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. 

Background

Since late 2016, Teiya has begun creating theatre, playwriting and performing in an opera-inspired solo theatre show called The Queen In Me, which originated during the Emerging Creators Unit at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre during the 2016-2017 season.

Teiya Kasahara takes inspiration from their career as a professional opera singer alongside their lived experiences as a queer, feminist, person of colour to re-imagine the Queen of the Night, one of opera’s most infamous “fallen women,” and places her in the centre 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.

Creator’s Note

2016 was a bad year for me. I had just come out of a depression and was considering leaving the opera industry and singing entirely. I had been struggling with being an opera singer in the industry for some time. Struggling with trying to fit in, trying to be what the industry deemed as hireable and successful. But every time I tried to project that image—that persona—I felt like I was losing a part of myself in the process. I didn’t know how to cope anymore, let alone survive as the queer, mixed-race singer I was/am. I was literally putting on a mask every day and not knowing who would be left underneath when I went home at night.

I realized it was time to ask myself some hard questions: why was I giving so much power to a job that demanded me to change the very nature and fabric of who I was? And what did it say about me that I was willing to put up with this industry’s long-outdated beliefs? I didn’t know much then, but I did know I couldn’t simply leave opera behind and walk away. Opera was and remains my life-force and my greatest gift. I would have to work for change from within. I would also have to go back to the beginning and rediscover when I fell in love with this vocation in the first place. That’s where I re-met the Queen of the Night.

Over my career I have performed the Queen of the Night in fourteen different iterations of The Magic Flute, each one seeing the famous character as an evil, fallen woman, and an obstacle who needed to be removed in order for the two young lovers to get their happy ending. Creating my own version of the Queen of the Night character, who served as the inspiration of The Queen In Me in early 2017, became my safe space and playground, while the Queen herself became my solace and my advocate. She inspired me to disrupt the world around me, she gave me the platform to speak and sing my truth, and by continuing to develop this solo piece, I started to not only say enough was enough, but I began singing in ways and through works I had never dreamed possible.

It has been a long road. We were supposed to premiere this work in September 2020, but COVID-19 had other plans. However, I’m glad the premiere was delayed until June 2022. While this great pivot took away a lot, it also gave me time to become myself, the real person I was holding back all of these years in the opera industry. And the journey continues to be a winding one. I came out as trans non-binary during this time to myself, to my partner, family, friends, and close colleagues, and with their support I’ve been able to say to the world, this is me. So much of my identity is wrapped up in my voice, a voice that is high—a soprano—and characterized as feminine to the ear, which cascades into the outside world assuming the rest of me is gendered feminine also. And that is okay. Sometimes. But for me, that is not me, as I am learning and unlearning from my past experiences. My voice is a beautiful and loving part of who I am. And my voice can also be trans, just like my body, mind and heart, with or without medical interventions. I don’t regret for a second being assigned female at birth and being socialized as a girl and a young woman. My experiences in womanhood make me the person I am today, make me whole—trans and ever-evolving—and make it possible for me to dream and live my gender and ethnicity through not only a fierce and feminine character like the Queen, but also beyond, both on and off the stage.

Working with Andrea Donaldson as dramaturg and director, co-founding Amplified Opera with Aria Umezawa, Asitha Tennekoon, and Marion Newman, and building my community of dear colleagues, has enabled me to probe further artistically and to honour my full self as I continue these healing and learning journeys with compassion and gentleness.

What the mask of the Queen of the Night affords me now is so much more than I could have ever initially imagined. She is a celebration of my past self, of the freedom and unbridled joy I always wanted to feel as a closeted, scared, young singer. She is my cheerleader helping me to redefine what it means to be a soprano in the opera industry. And she is my companion and confidante as I continue to venture into this career of making art, of making space, and celebrating my community. Now, I can finally say that the they/them/theirs of me and my voice are here to stay, welcoming continual disruption of my own perception of what gender is and can be, and of what it means to be a soprano.

— Teiya Kasahara 笠原 貞野 (they/them), Creator and Performer
May 2022

Directors’ Note

Andy Warhol understood the power and pitfalls of repeating an image when he remarked “the more you look at the exact same thing… the better and emptier you feel.” He was referring to the nature of pop culture—observing that cultural understanding is cemented through repetition and noting the emotional attachment we have towards stories and images that are familiar to us. The nuance of Warhol’s art is in how it highlights the tension between an image becoming iconic the more frequently it is seen, while simultaneously losing its meaning.

Enter The Queen of the Night: an iconic character who sings an iconic aria that has been repeated for centuries. She is bombastic, charismatic, and tonight she is ‘a little pissed.’ She loves opera and her audience, but has reached a boiling point—she cannot bear to perpetuate the racism, misogyny, and various abuses on and offstage for herself and her other fellow fallen women characters. So tonight, she halts the opera.

This iteration of The Queen of the Night is born from coloratura soprano Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野’s (pronouns they/them) experience as a queer trans nonbinary multiracial person who has spent years trying to fit into the rigid roles that their vocal fach* demanded. Their identity and their passion for opera have been at painful odds, which spurred the creation of this piece. In crafting this work, Teiya has given up their anonymity, standing up to an entire industry. A central tension in The Queen in Me is that The Queen—and truly the creator, Teiya—loves the very music that prevents them from expressing themselves authentically as their full self.

Whistleblowers are dangerous and vital. The COC has had the bravery to invite a cultural troublemaker (and their entourage of partner organizations) into their space—disruptors who are railing against opera’s systems and traditions, gesturing toward a new era that asks what we might gain by looking even more critically at the works we consume. In this time of decolonization, truth, and reconciliation, settler culture is experiencing a painful loss of innocence. Through confronting truths and gaining insight into how we are impacted by the world around us, we can challenge the stories that bring us comfort, but that have proven to leave us empty.

If Warhol is right, and engaging in repetition makes us feel good and empty, then we might theorize that breaking from repetition makes us feel uncomfortable and full. What makes The Queen In Me so vital is how Teiya Kasahara demonstrates that by resisting the inertia which compels us to tell the same stories in the same ways, and by challenging ourselves to search for new meaning, we can emerge from the process feeling proud and empowered to live as our full selves.

We hope you enjoy the show!

— Andrea Donaldson and Aria Umezawa, Co-Directors
May 2022

Acknowledgements

THE QUEEN IN ME world premiere is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Wuchien Michael Than Foundation.