sabotabby | Post-apocalyptic queer opera

Went to see OperaQ's reimagining of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Dido and Belinda, with

chickenfeet last night, and I need to tell you about it, because there is now a queer opera company in Toronto, and they did a genderswapped Dido and Aeneas focusing on Belinda's POV, set in a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, in a chapel. And it was everything that I hoped it would be. The singers filled the space (which is apparently usually a difficult space to work in, since it's long and narrow, but they made it work for the production), the costume and makeup design was fantastic, and they managed to somehow get humour into what rather a dark story about a melodramatic emo queen committing suicide. I was wondering how they would manage the singing, since gender is a social construct but voice pitch and range are not, but it really worked, even (especially, in the case of the sorcerer), where it was transposed.

I'm pretty excited about this company. We were comparing it to Opera Atelier's production of the same opera, which made the inexplicable choice to write a very condescending prologue since "no one reads the Aeneid anymore." Despite the fact that no one in this production looked like they were out of high school, they pulled off a much more mature, sophisticated interpretation, modernizing it for a contemporary crowd while still respecting said crowd's intelligence. I'd have done away with some of the voiceovers because I felt that the music and staging spoke for itself, but beyond that, really impressive stuff, and I can't wait to see what they do next.