
This page is a non-commercial research entry within the *Operatic LGBTQIA+ Catalogue*. It does not claim authorship, ownership, or rights over the works discussed.
All rights remain with the respective authors, composers, librettists, publishers, companies, performers, and rights holders.
For performance, purchase, licensing, recordings, or rights-related requests, please contact the official rights holders.
Entries can be corrected, updated, expanded, or removed upon request.
*1309*
A millennial coming-of-age “coming out story” set in 2005. After a young queer teenager is outed by their family, they expose a web of mistrust and lies their family carries. This creates a poltergeist informed by conservative media, misunderstanding, and broken family bonds, as the protagonist is made a scapegoat for the family's own failures. The narrative reclaims queer horror by reflecting on the burden young queer people carry when coming out to their family unit. It’s a darkly comedic and dreamlike story of trans joy and resiliency in the Midwest.
Behind the Wallpaper
A song cycle narrating a mysterious transformation. The protagonist leads a mundane, dreary life, but altered perception reveals a sinister flicker in the corners. After a strange encounter in a university science park, they begin to change in ways both visible and invisible. The story traces an unsettling journey of otherness, culminating in finding a home in a hidden world.
Glitter Balls
This opera project aims to depict queer (LGBTQ+) experiences through opera, and to do so queerly. Its source material is real-life stories, collected ethnographically; the compositional, staging and design processes are multistylistic, conceived to challenge traditional models of expression and spectatorship. Diversity and representation are ensured through a rich network of collaborations, with a particular focus on ungendering voice and on the possibilities offered by trans voices.
Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K. 492
In the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, the clever valet Figaro and the maid Susanna prepare for their wedding. The Count, who had abolished the lord's "droit du seigneur," now seeks to reinstate it to seduce Susanna. With the help of the Countess and the amorous page Cherubino—who is infatuated with all women—the servants devise a scheme to expose the Count's infidelity. Through a series of mistaken identities, secret letters, and a mock trial, the Count is publicly shamed and forced to beg for forgiveness, leading to a joyous reconciliation.
Platée
The nymph Platée is an ugly creature who lives in a marsh and is convinced she is irresistible. To cure his wife Juno's jealousy, Jupiter, the king of the gods, pretends to fall in love with her. He stages an elaborate mock wedding, culminating in Juno's interruption and discovery of the grotesque "bride". Realizing the joke, Juno reconciles with Jupiter, and they return to Olympus, leaving Platée alone, humiliated, and mocked by the gods and a chorus of frogs
A Quiet Place
At the funeral of Dinah, the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family, her widowed husband Sam tries to reconcile with his two estranged children: his daughter Dede and his gay, schizophrenic son Junior. The drama that unfolds in the aftermath of the funeral exposes raw wounds and secrets, particularly the fact that Dede is now married to François, who is also Junior's ex-boyfriend. As the family attempts to deal with their pain and communicate after decades of bitterness, the opera weaves in a flashback of Bernstein's earlier work, Trouble in Tahiti, to reveal the origins of their unhappiness. The work ultimately ends on a fragile note of hope for reconciliation
D[x]n Pasquale
When the miserly millionaire Dawn Pasquale tries to disenfranchise her nonbinary nibling, Ernie, on the basis of prejudice, the young artist's two kink-positive lovers must resort to hilariously extreme measures of drag, distractions, and deception to try to open Pasquale's mind and heart. This new English translation takes the original opera's themes of disapproval and familial rejection and reimagines them through a queer lens, giving the story a much-deserved happy ending.
Hairpiece
On the verge of a solitary retirement, wigmaker Esther knows everything about her craft but doesn't know how to save her studio, preserve the dying art, or find meaning in her life's work. When an eye-catching young stranger shows up unannounced at her door, an unexpected alliance emerges. The story explores what it means to feel comfortable in authentically expressing gender, and how that need to feel seen connects people.
Lili Elbe
The true story of celebrated Danish painter Lili Elbe (1882-1931), one of the first people to undergo gender affirmation surgery. Married to artist Gerda Wegener, Lili began presenting as a woman in the 1920s. The central event occurs when Gerda asks her husband Einar to pose as a woman for a painting; this request awakens a profound and long-buried self-discovery in him, beginning his transformation into Lili Elbe. The opera follows her journey: moving to Paris, achieving legal recognition from the Danish king, undergoing surgeries, and finding new love. Although Lili dies from complications of a second surgery, she and Gerda declare their eternal love for one another at the end
Stonewall
The story follows a diverse group of fictional characters as their lives collide at the Stonewall Inn on a hot night in June 1969. Part I explores the life of each character in the hours leading up to the riot, establishing the oppressive atmosphere of 1960s New York. Part II sees the police raid the club, which the patrons initially endure but then revolt against after being pushed too far. Part III takes place the morning after, as the characters, aware that something momentous has occurred, await the new dawn
As One
The opera chronicles the coming-of-age journey of Hannah, a transgender woman, as she discovers her gender identity and learns to accept herself. Her story unfolds in 15 songs across two parts, moving from the isolation and unease of her youth in a small town to the complexity of her college years, and eventually to a place of peace and self-acceptance after traveling to a new country alone
Dion: A Rock Opera
A fully sung-through rock opera reimagining of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae. The story follows Dion (a non-binary demi-god and the protagonist), who returns to the city-state of Thebes to punish their mother's family for denying their divine origin. The conservative ruler Pentheus is enraged to find his citizens abandoning the city to follow Dion, engaging in wine-fueled ecstasy and debauchery. Pentheus is eventually seduced into cross-dressing and spying on the cult, only to be dismembered by his own mother, Agave, in a Bacchic frenzy. The opera uses its ancient framework to explore modern themes of political polarization and gender identity
La Calisto
The king of the gods, Jupiter (Giove), becomes obsessed with the nymph Calisto, a follower of the chaste goddess Diana. To seduce her, he disguises himself as Diana. The plan works, and in the disguise, the "lesbian" seduction of Calisto takes place. Meanwhile, the real Diana falls in love with the shepherd Endimione. When Jupiter's wife Juno discovers the affair, she transforms Calisto into a bear out of jealousy. The opera ends with Jupiter transforming Calisto into the constellation Ursa Major.
Orlando
Based on Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, the opera follows Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabethan England who, after waking from a trance, transforms into a woman. The story spans three centuries, during which Orlando travels, writes poetry, and navigates changing gender roles. The libretto weaves Woolf’s words with new text, focusing on the fluidity of gender, the construction of identity across time, and the resistance to fixed categories. The stage features a single countertenor who embodies both male and female Orlando, accompanied by an ensemble that comments like a Greek chorus.
The Stonewall Operas
Four short operas created to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising. 1. Nightlife (TJ Rubin / Deepali Gupta): Inside the Stonewall Inn, a police raid exposes a closeted lesbian, a reclaimed slur, addiction, and a coming‑out. 2. Outside (Bryan Blaskie / Seth Christenfeld): In a bar near Stonewall on the night of Judy Garland’s funeral, police extortion and sexual abuse lead to an uprising. 3. The Pomada Inn (Brian Cavanagh‑Strong / Ben Bonnema): Two gay couples – one in 1969 New York, another in 2019 Madrid – are compared; the bar as sanctuary, safety concerns and police raids. 4. The Community (Kevin Cummines / Shoshana Greenberg): 400 years in the future, after an apocalypse, the only surviving artefact is a book about Stonewall, which has become a cult; polyamory is the norm, “queens” are sacred, dissident characters want monogamy and solitude – a queer utopia turned dystopia.