Secret Opera

From the late nineteenth century until World War II, Paris was a centre of sexual freedom and same-sex sexual cultures.

Lesbian American and European expatriates and France’s own lesbian writers and artists created a Bohemian social, sexual, and creative milieu that makes this time and place unique in the history of lesbian culture. Secret

Opera has translated Verdi’s love story to that milieu, with key characters portrayed as female. To paraphrase a review of our previous reworking of the All-Male carMen, “The ‘hes may now be ‘shes’, but when it comes to operatic heartbreak, gender is irrelevant.