Opera

It all began at age 15. Teiya was attending the University of British Columbia’s Summer Music Institute and one of the planned evening activities (after a day filled with lessons, coachings and masterclasses on this new genre of singing which they had just discovered – opera), was a screening of Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute (1975). It was the first opera Teiya ever saw and heard, except for reruns of Looney Tunes on Saturday mornings. It didn’t matter that the words were in Swedish; it was the music that swept them away, enhanced by stunning up-close footage of this production filmed in Stockholm’s Drottningholm Palace Theatre in the illustrious Baroque style that swept Teiya off their feet and catapulted them into a life-long desire to create music and story in a form as complex and magical as opera.

Teiya didn’t know then that they would be performing their own version of the Queen of the Night almost 20 years later in their first original work THE QUEEN IN ME. In that moment all they wanted was to be able to even attempt the infamous Act 2 aria “Der Hölle Rache” at least once in their lifetime. And that Teiya did, and has since performed the role at least 100 times in over 9 different productions and concerts.

Since graduating at the top of their class from UBC’s School of Music, Teiya immediately began their professional career with the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio in Toronto. They spent three years training and perfecting their stage-craft covering and singing a variety roles of the soubrette and lyric coloratura soprano repertoire that included  Echo / Ariadne auf Naxos, Lucy / The Telephone, Serpina / La Serva Padrona, Frasquita / Carmen, First Wood Sprite / Rusalka, the Balmont Fables / The Nightingale & Other Short Fables (Stravinsky),  and Despina / Così fan tutte. Covered roles included Lucia / Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria Stuarda / Maria Stuarda, Zerbinetta / Ariadne auf Naxos, Madame Mao / Nixon China, Rosina / Il barbiere di Siviglia, Susanna / Le nozze di Figaro, Marzelline / Fidelio, Musetta / La bohème, Ilia / Idomeneo, and the Nightingale / The Nightingale & Other Short Fables.

Following their time at COC, Teiya began to sing across Canada and Europe (Prague, Teplice, Toulon, & Essen) performing mainly their “impeccable” and “effortless” (reviewVancouver) Queen of the Night / The Magic Flute, their dream role since age 15. Living life as an opera singer encouraged Teiya to come into their own, however, and that meant re-discovering their cultural roots, and understanding their queerness, and gender identity by returning to Toronto as their home base, seizing the chance to jump in last minute in a sparkling black tuxedo for an ailing Queen of the Night at the Canadian Opera Company (2022), at the same time rehearsing for the premiere of their show The Queen In Me.

Since 2014 Teiya has been working exclusively with soprano Dr. Maria Vetere, of the Vetere Studio where they have been developing dramatic soprano and dramatic coloratura soprano repertoire. They have garnered great success through the Operavision Academy where they worked intensively with Sir Richard Bonynge in Urbania and Busseto, Italy, performing at the Museo Renata Tebaldi and Casa di Verdi in Milan. In 2017 Teiya performed their first Lady Macbeth / Macbeth with Opera Niagara and their role debut of Cio-Cio San / Madama Butterfly with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in early 2020, also the cover at the Canadian Opera Company in 2022. Most recently, they have covered the title role of Salome, also at the Canadian Opera Company (2023).

Alongside their passion for canonical works, Teiya is dedicated to singing in new works that will enter the operatic canon. A notable role, Solana, from When the Sun Comes Out by composer Leslie Uyeda and librettist Rachel Rose, Teiya was praised as a “magnetic performer” singing with “a dynamic mix of sweetness undercut by strength” (Opera Canada). When the Sun Comes Out, billed as Canada’s first lesbian opera, premiered to great acclaim at the Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver in 2013, which allowed Teiya to bring the work to Toronto for World Pride in 2014 as a semi-staged concert version to sold-out audiences, also marking their debuts as both director and producer. Other roles they’ve premiered in new works include Flora Sandes / Dead Equal (Hall/Palmer), and the Priestess and Bartender / Pomegranate (Marshall/Hale), which will be produced again at the Canadian Opera Company in Spring 2023.

In Toronto Teiya has also performed with the National Ballet of Canada, the Amadeus Choir (Carmina Burana), Tapestry Opera (Hope / Shelter, etc), Soulpepper, Opera 5 (Fé-an-nich-ton / Ba-ta-clan; Mahénu / L’îsle du Rêve), Against the Grain Theatre (Bino / Figaro’s Wedding), Savaka Arts (Donna Elvira / Don Giovanni), Soundstreams (Electric Messiah), among others.

Internationally Teiya has portrayed Fata Morgana / L’amour des trois oranges for the 2015-16 season at the Aalto-Musiktheater in Essen, Germany, Tytania / A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aspen Music Festival), small roles and the title role cover of Robert Lepage’s The Nightingale & Other Short Fables (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and numerous concerts with Opéra Toulon Provence Méditerranée.

Teiya is equally at home on the operatic and concert stages as they are in the theatre as playwright/creator, collaborator and performer. Their life-long love of bel canto and the operatic canon, especially of those composers such as Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini, Verdi, and Strauss will always remain their first passion and ultimate musical expression. It is with sincere hope that Teiya’s work, not only as a performer of this immense canon, but also as a transgressor of the problematic and oppressive systems within opera, that they can continue to create space within opera for their (and others like them) many complex and beautiful identities through their projects such as The Queen In Me, and the ongoing Butterfly Project. They further amplify this mission working with fellow co-founders Aria Umezawa, Asitha Tennekoon and Marion Newman centring equity-seeking artists to decolonize the art-form through their company Amplified Opera, founded in 2017.

Last updated: Feb 2, 2023