Trans Woman to Play Don Giovani in OK

I confess that I'm not much of an opera buff, but I think this is huge news for the opera world and for transgender artists. To be honest, though, OK is the last place I would've guessed doing something groundbreaking like this. I figure NYC or SF would be more likely. Still, it's a great step forward.

A production of Don Giovanni opening this weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma, stars a transgender woman in the title role.

While operas around trans themes are starting to emerge, Tulsa’s take on Mozart’s classic represents the first time a professional opera company in the United States has hired a trans person to sing the lead in a standard work.

Lucia Lucas, the woman charged with playing one of the opera canon’s best-known protagonists, is a rising star. The 38-year-old singer has performed on major stages in Europe and Asia. Next season, she will make her debut with the English National Opera in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. And all this using the dramatic baritone voice with which she launched her international career, before she transitioned, a decade ago.

“I think I can retrain my voice to contralto, mezzo or soprano. But how long would that take and what’s the likelihood I would get hired?” says Lucas, who was born and raised in Sacramento, California, and calls Karlsruhe, Germany, home. “Whereas I have work in the standard baritone repertoire into 2022. Why would I mess with that?”

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