Diva

The(ir) Blurb...

In the drag bar as well as the opera house, cries of ‘DIVA’ ring out for performers who tear us screaming outside the bonds of mere reality. In this surreal queer fantasia on classical music, Baroque iconography, and scandalous first-century verse, drag prima donna Divina de Campo premieres an original operatic aria with chamber orchestra by composer V. R. Alevizos, enacting a space where the drag diva and the opera diva share the same skin. The Aria plays out within a dizzying Baroque fever-dream: Archived opera set pieces and costumes, contemporary fashion design, and faded ‘high’-cultural artefacts are scrambled and re-interpreted to new ends, staging dialogues between art forms which traffic in the extremes of gender performance. Divina, in the embrace of a queer-led cast of actors and musicians, wanders through some of Europe’s most stunning Baroque architecture – but finds in its edifice something overpowering, wearying, even oppressing. She sings a text drawn from Ovid, advising young Roman women to ‘learn, my dears, the art of beautifying your face’. Ovid/Divina give caution, however, since ‘the men, in these days, pay immense attention to their dress … and the wives can hardly outdo their husbands in luxurious attire.’