DRAG! – The Opera

‘DRAG! – The Opera’ is a musical theatre project at the intersection of opera, drag and queer historiography. Conceived and premiered by Shlomi Moto Wagner and the House of Mazeltov, the performance combines live singing, lip-syncing and an orchestra to create a contemporary form of opera.

The starting point is the legendary story of the character Didi, imagined as the first Jewish drag queen in post-war Berlin. Her biography is drawn from interviews with Berlin drag queens of different generations and functions as ‘effective fiction’ to bring repressed and marginalised queer realities to light.

Rather than reproducing classical operatic material, the biographical experiences of queer performers are transformed into mythological opera arias. Verismo arias, electronic beats and queer pop references create emotional resonant spaces in which individual and collective stories are repositioned.

‘DRAG! – The Opera’ regards drag and opera as equivalent, ritualised forms of performance and rewrites erased narratives into the cultural canon from a contemporary queer perspective.

Shlomi Moto Wagner is an interdisciplinary performer*, musician*, author* and drag queen, also known as Mazy Mazeltov, and is developing the piece with Heinrich Horwitz (co-director, dramaturgy), Eloain Lovis Hübner (composition), Misha Cvijović (musical director), Maria Magdalena Emmerig and Charlotte Pistorius (set and costume design).

IN ENGLISH