Trans creatives, October '24

 Another in my series on trans arts and culture. Despite trans people being the new enemy in various places, we continue to produce music, literature and art. You just can't keep us down.

Just a few things that have caught my notice recently.

 

Music

1) It's hardly a shock that a stage musical has a non-binary character in it, but this is one of the leads, named Oliver, played by Jo Foster in Why Am I So Single? by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the creators of the successful Six (in which the six wives of Henry VIII set up as a girl band to rewrite history!) Playing at London's Garrick Theatre till 13 February 2025.

2) Advance notice of a new production of Francis Poulenc's short 1945 comic opera Les mamelles de Tirésias ("The Breasts of Tiresias") playing in opera houses in France this season. Based on Guillaume Apollinaire's 1903 play of the same name, itself using the legend of Greek seer Tiresias who is transformed into a woman by Hera, goddess of childbirth, in punishment for his hitting two snakes in the act of making snaky love. He lives as a woman for seven years and even has children before being pardoned and detransitionng back into a man after leaving the next pair of amorous snakes he finds well alone. There's also more than a hint in the opera of the brilliant Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, first performed in 411 BC when Lysistrata persuades the women of Athens to go on a sex strike to force the men of Greece to end the very real, very long and very damaging Peloponnesian War. 

Anyway, the opera tells of Thérèse, a bored housewife, whose boobs float away as she transitions into a man, then forcibly crossdresses her husband as a woman and, now as General Tirésias, she goes off to fight a war against childbirth. Her husband, meanwhile, worried that a sex strike by women will lead to the end of the world, produces inordinate numbers of babies himself. Happily, the couple are reconciled at the end and encourage the French audience to repopulate France after the devastation of World War II. (I have never felt the French needed much encouragement in that direction, but successive French governments have always thought otherwise!)

Anyway, the opera will be on next spring and summer. For a taste of the transition moment here's a 2013 production with the wonderful Sabine Devieilhe, possibly the greatest soprano of our era, as Thérèse/Tirésias. (The character of the Grosse Dame (i.e. fat lady) in yellow here is tenor Rodolphe Briand. And, as we know, it ain't over till the fat lady sings!)

3) Not strictly a transgender theme but certainly gender-bending, those interested in older opera might be curious about prolific composer Baldassarre Galuppi's L'uomo femina ("The Woman Man"), a long-forgotten work from 1762 that has been revived and is playing in opera houses in France and Spain this season. The plot is introduced thus:

Two castaways are stranded on an island ruled by women, where the men are docile, coquettish and even a little timid.

Princess Cretidea reigns unchallenged over her subjects. She leads armies, collects lovers and reassures her favourite, who fears he might one day be abandoned should his hairstyle displease her. But the princess falls madly in love with Roberto, the castaway who refuses to submit to the laws of the island. A lively debate ensues, carried along by Galuppi’s flamboyant music: who should submit? Who should govern? Which is the weaker sex?

L'uomo femina is playing at Dijon on 7, 8, 9 November, at Caen on 15, 16 November; at Versailles on 13, 14, 15 December and in Madrid on 3 April (in an unstaged version).

4) I have been listening to songs by award-winning composer (and novelist) Kerry Andrew who uses non-binary pronouns they/them. I'm not sure this somewhat experimental music is quite my thing but it's certainly performed in major venues and valued. Here's Who We Are commissioned and performed by the combined National Youth Choirs of Great Britain: 

Art

1) I was pleased to read on my recent rail journey to Britain that the controversial fourth plinth* (see below) in London's Trafalgar Square has a sculpture by Mexican artist (and forensic scientist) Teresa Margolles depicting over 700 masks pressed from the faces of trans and non-binary people, designed to "unite the trans community round the world". Margolles is a very active trans ally in a country not known for good treatment of trans people.

One of several reviews in the UK's Guardian newspaper here

* The Fourth Plinth controversy. Trafalgar Square is a famous open space in central London named after Vice-Admiral Nelson's victory off Cape Trafalgar in Spain in 1805. It is dominated by a column with Nelson at the top. The military theme continues on the ground with four plinths for statues of successful kings and generals, but only three have ever been filled. In the late 1990s it was suggested that maybe, after being empty for 150 years, the fourth plinth might house contemporary sculpture, which was agreed. Contemporary sculpture seems to be controversial by nature. This latest sculpture is likely to be more so than usual both for its subject-matter, its dedication and its style. (For what it's worth, the one item I quite liked was Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle on display from 2010-2012. Silly yet charming and, for once, actually relevant to the surroundings.)

Yinka Shonibare's Nelson's Ship in a Bottle by QuentinUK

 

2) In July I mentioned a large numbers of LGBT+ artists participating in the 2024 Venice Biennale. Last week's Elle Italia magazine (always a trans-supportive publication) had an article on another trans artist, La Chola Poblete from Argentina, who has recently won Deutsche Bank's Artist of the Year award and has also just had an exhibition at Milan's MUDEC Museum of Culture. She explains that she distances herself from the notion of gender transition specifically because we are all transitioning really, from life to death.

© Mudec, Milan

 

Graphic novels

I have just bought the collected autobiographical trilogy of Fumettibrutti, nom de plume (which I'd translate as "Horridcomix") of trans artist Josephine Yole Signorelli, whose graphic work has won many awards. The second novel, My Transgender Adolescence, is the longest and, I suspect, the most interesting of the three. I'll let you know how I get on and review it in due course.

 

Film

Close to You is Elliot Page's film about a trans man who returns to his home town for the first time in many years. "On his journey, he confronts his relationship with his family, reunites with a first love and discovers and newfound confidence in himself" (Greenwich Entertainment). This has received largely positive reviews from critics and is out on Netflix in November. Trans people who have seen it and commented say it very much reflects our lived experience, which not all cis people will understand.

 

Keep being creative out there! 

Sue x