Transgender baritone Lucia Lucas makes US debut

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Transgender baritone Lucia Lucas makes US debut

2019-05-03 03:36 Last Updated At：03:40

Lucia Lucas has taken one of the most difficult paths to her American professional opera debut.

She moved to Europe a decade ago as Lucas Harbour, established a career as a baritone in regional houses, then decided in 2013 to transition to female. Now a transgender baritone, she will make her U.S. debut as the title character in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" at the Tulsa Opera in performances Friday and Sunday.

"I'm sure other houses will be watching to see what happens," she said.

Now 38, Lucas grew up in Sacramento, California, studied horn and voice at Cal State Sacramento and then did graduate work at the Chicago College of Performing Arts. Her coach, baritone Richard Stilwell, suggested a move to Germany.

Tobias Picker, the composer who is Tulsa Opera's artistic director, auditioned her in February 2018 for a planned transgender opera after discovering Lucas' clips on YouTube and sending her an email.

Lucas sang from Picker's own "Thérèse Raquin" in Picker's Manhattan living room, and he decided on the spot to offer her "Don Giovanni." Director Denni Sayers has Lucas use different disguises, employing the singer's ability to present masculine and feminine.

"It's a great dramatic baritone voice," Picker said. "It has depth of emotion and it has enormous power."

Lucas long felt uncertain as a male.

"As soon as I knew that there were boys and girls, I knew," she said. "I didn't have terminology for it. It was mid '80s, so it was a little difficult. If I had a phone with Facebook and Instagram and all the things that exist now, I would go: This is me. I would find a video and show my parents and say: This is me. Please help me."

Harbour sang at Germany's Deutsche Oper Berlin and Italy's Teatro Regio Torino in 2009-10, spent the following season in Heidelberg, then shifted with artistic director Peter Spuhler to Karlsruhe and stayed through 2015-16. At first the roles were small, but some were led by famous conductors, including Wagner's "Tannhäuser" with Semyon Bychkov in Italy.

Lucas made the decision in November 2013 to transition and started taking estrogen and anti-androgens in July 2014. Facial feminization surgery followed that September and gender confirmation surgery in 2016.

She worried how the transition would be received by administrators, colleagues and audiences.

"In the beginning, it was scary," she said. "And I think that there are people who are still not necessarily on my side and may never be on my side. But what are you going to do? You gravitate towards the people who like you and you try not to worry about the people who don't."

By 2016, her roles had grown to the toreador Escamillo in Bizet's "Carmen" in Karlsruhe and the four villains in Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffman (The Tales of Hoffmann)" at Opernhaus Wuppertal , a staging that had her start as female for Lindorf, become male for Coppélius, then switch back.

"The audience was so thrilled. There was such an energy and tension in the room," said Berthold Schneider, Wuppertal's artistic director. "She immediately won the hearts of the audience."

Lucas' wife, Ariana , is a 33-year-old contralto who is a company contract singer with the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. They met in college when Ariana crashed a Halloween party.

In transitioning, Lucas never thought about trying to raise her voice.

"I would love to wake up and be able to sing Brünnhilde, but that's not how it works," she said of the lead role in "Die Walküre." ''Doing a Wotan is probably going to pay more than an Erda or Fricka."

Mezzo-soprano Adrian Angelico is the most prominent male transgender opera singer, performing roles such as Cherubino in Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)" and Octavian in Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier."

Given the scarcity of top Verdi and Wagner baritones, Lucas hopes to be hired by bigger and bigger companies. A role debut for Verdi's "Rigoletto" is planned for 2020-21. She is scheduled for her English National Opera debut next fall in Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld."

And then there is the role Picker auditioned her for: He has the rights to "The Danish Girl," a novel by David Ebershoff about a sex reassignment surgery in the 1920s, one adapted into a 2015 film directed by Tom Hooper. Picker will compose and Aryeh Lev Stollman will write the libretto.

First is this weekend. While Lucas' mother has seen many of her performances, her father planned to make the trip to Oklahoma. Lucas' parents divorced decades ago, and she hasn't seen her dad in 10 years. As if an American debut weren't enough pressure.

"I haven't seen my dad in a very, very long time, definitely since I came out and quite a bit longer than that," she said. "We just stopped talking. It's just like birthdays and holidays."

Hundreds more in Venezuela say their loved ones are 'political prisoners'

GUANARE, Venezuela (AP) — Freedom came too late for Edilson Torres.

The police officer was buried Tuesday in his humble, rural hometown following his death in a Venezuelan prison, where he was held incommunicado since being detained in December on what his family said were politically motivated accusations.

Torres, 51, died of a heart attack Saturday, just as his family awaited the government's promised release of prisoners following the U.S. capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro. The loss left his family reeling.

Now scores of families — who once hesitated to approach advocacy groups — are coming forward to register their loved ones as “political prisoners" in the hope that they might have a more optimistic future than Torres.

Foro Penal, which tracks and advocates for Venezuelan prisoners, has received a “flood of messages” from families since last week, said Alfredo Romero, director of the nongovernmental organization.

“They didn’t report it out of fear, and now they’re doing it because, in a way, they feel that there is this possibility that their families will be freed,” Romero said. “They see it as hope, but more importantly, as an opportunity.”

The head of Venezuela’s national assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, said last week that a “significant number” of Venezuelan and foreigners imprisoned in the country would be released as a gesture to “seek peace” following the operation that captured Maduro in the early hours of Jan. 3. The U.S. and Venezuela's opposition have long demanded the widespread release of detained opposition figures, activists and journalists, whom they claim are used as a political tool by the ruling party.

Venezuela’s government denies that there are prisoners unjustly detained, accusing them of plotting to destabilize Maduro’s government.

Following Torres' death, Venezuela's Attorney General Tarek William Saab said in a statement that the case had been assigned to a terrorism unit and “was linked to criminal activities detected by state security agencies.” He did not offer any details, but the vague language tracks with past accusations leveled against real or perceived government critics.

Romero said that of the roughly 300 families who reached out to Foro Penal, about 100 cases so far have been confirmed as politically motivated. Most of those reported over the past few days, he said, once worked for Venezuela's military. That is on top of more than 800 people that the organization says continue to be detained for political reasons in Venezuela.

As of Tuesday evening, Foro Penal had confirmed 56 prisoners it said were detained for political reasons had been freed. The group criticized the lack of government transparency over the releases. Venezuela’s government negated the organization's count, and reported a far higher figure of 400 Tuesday afternoon.

But the government did not provide evidence of the releases, a time range in which they were carried out nor identify those freed, making it impossible to determine whether those freed were behind bars for political or other reasons.

Before Torres' funeral on Tuesday, a procession of cars and motorcycles stopped at a local jail, where his wife remains detained on disputed accusations.

“My little brother, my little brother,” Emelyn Torres said between sobs after his casket, cloaked in Venezuela's flag, arrived at her home for the wake. A few feet away, their grandmother nearly fainted as dozens of people crammed into the living room to pay their respects.

Hours earlier, as a minivan transported the body of her brother 267 miles (430 kilometers) from the capital, Caracas, to Guanare, Torres learned that other men linked to the WhatsApp group that led to her brother's arrest had just been released from prison. She wailed.

Among those who have been released are: human rights attorney Rocío San Miguel, who immediately relocated to Spain; Biagio Pilieri, an opposition leader who was part of Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado’s 2024 presidential campaign; and Enrique Márquez, a former electoral authority and presidential candidate.

Italian businessman Marco Burlò, who was released from prison Monday, told reporters outside a Rome airport Tuesday that he was kept isolated throughout his detention, which he characterized as a “pure and real kidnapping.”

“I can’t say that I was physically abused, but without being able to talk to our children, without the right to defense, without being able to speak to the lawyer, completely isolated, here they thought that I might have died,” he said.

The small set of releases over the past few days continues to fuel criticisms by families, human rights watchdogs at the United Nations and U.S. politicians, who have accused the government of not following through on their word of a wider release.

But the rapid political shifts in the Latin American nation and the distant possibility of release simultaneously marked a rare moment of hope for many families who have spent years wondering if their loved ones would ever be freed.

Part of the reason that Romero said he believed so many people had not come forward is the government's ongoing crackdown on dissent since Venezuela's tumultuous 2024 election, which Maduro claimed to have won despite ample credible evidence to the contrary.

As mass street protests broke out, authorities said they detained more than 2,000 people. In the month after July elections, Venezuela's government passed a law — dubbed the “anti-NGO law” by critics — making it easier for the government to criminalize human rights groups.

That had a chilling effect, Romero said, making families hesitant to come forward — until now.

Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Transgender baritone Lucia Lucas makes US debut

ENT

Transgender baritone Lucia Lucas makes US debut

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