There are 19 performers onstage in , purring and roaring their way through the 19th-century operatic examination of drunken, campy, romantic inspiration. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * There are 19 performers onstage in , purring and roaring their way through the 19th-century operatic examination of drunken, campy, romantic inspiration. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? There are 19 performers onstage in , purring and roaring their way through the 19th-century operatic examination of drunken, campy, romantic inspiration.
But the Manitoba Underground Opera’s version of Jacques Offenbach’s grandiose final work — running today to Sept. 29 at downtown queer haven Club 200 — couldn’t go forward without the insight of one offstage muse: a self-made queen by the name of Moxie Cotton. Since 2017, Cotton has been a fixture in Winnipeg’s drag community, flirtatiously lip-synching to Carly Rae Jepsen and other “pop princess” fare.
Cotton belongs to the same local drag universe as queens such as Satina Loren and Prairie Sky, or kings such as Hari Vajayjay. Paul McKeen photo Adam Sperry and Janice Marple rehearse on the dance floor at Club 200. Cotton, who has a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Manitoba, revels in the opportunity to express herself and her gender identity through drag, but has reason for being protective over the community-based artform.
So when the Manitoba Underground Opera’s Brendan McKeen and director Matthew Paris-Irvine asked Cotton to be the opera’s official drag consultant, she was eager to participate, ensuring the inclusion of drag in the production was grounded in genuine respect and honest feeling, not exploitation or mockery. “Always throughout history, but especially right now, we humble cross-dressers have been made to be this monster, this other. Bringing our particular brand of queer experience into this story and giving it this lens of consideration is exciting and powerful,” she says.
Founded in 2011, the independent opera company has staged its performances in settings such as churches, art galleries and government buildings, emphasizing the physical and temporal mobility of an artform many associate with bygone eras. In assessing Offenbach’s opera, which was unfinished at the time of the German-French composer’s death in 1880, Paris-Irvine says he recognized an overwhelming sense of camp in its outlandish narrative of misplaced affection and the transgressive, over-the-top representation of romantic competition. “Here’s this story of a man hopelessly in love with all of the wrong things, while the most beautiful kind of love is right in front of him,” says the 27-year-old Paris-Irvine, a first-time opera director who served as associate director and movement director for this summer’s Shakespeare in the Ruins production of In Offenbach’s opera, completed posthumously by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré, the action begins with a sold-out performance by a rising starlet at a theatre, while those unable to obtain last-minute tickets gather in a barroom next door.
Paris-Irvine and McKeen read about Luther’s Tavern and envisioned Club 200, one of the longest-running gay bars in Canada. “I wanted for this production to feel that every stitch has a feeling of here and now. I had no intention of pretending we were anywhere other than where we are,” says Paris-Irvine.
Part of that recognition meant working to understand the muse, Nicklausse – played by Kris Cahatol – as a drag king, leveraging the character’s ambiguity to reimagine him as an audience guide through Offenbach’s version of “the fay wild,” says Paris-Irvine. “In a traditional production, the muse of poetry disguises himself as Hoffmann’s best friend, urging him to dedicate his life to poetry, but often that’s quite a tertiary component. My goal was to make this relationship the throughline of the opera,” the director says.
“Nicklausse is the one tethering Hoffmann to his art and inspiration,” adds Cotton, who worked with Cahatol to develop an approach to character consistent with drag-king traditions. “They’re a campy spirit – fantastical, bigger than reality.” That made sense to Cotton, who says drag has allowed her to play with gender in cartoonish ways, re-establishing how she fits within the contours of an often binary world.
“I’m a drag queen, but I often lip-synch songs by men because I think a woman can have any voice. I can have a little moustache when I’m putting my makeup on because why can’t a woman have a moustache?” she says. Weekly A weekly look at what’s happening in Winnipeg’s arts and entertainment scene.
That freedom of character embodiment and embellishment lends itself naturally to operatic forms, Cotton says. By adding a layer of modern drag to a German romantic opera, it’s obvious how much material the two seemingly disparate artforms share, she says. “People consider opera a high art, drag a low one, and that’s not necessarily an insult – we kind of revel in it,” she says.
“Drag can be many things, look many different ways. The beauty of it is in its queer, amorphous nature. With this production, it’s not heightening drag, but lowering opera that’s become kind of the aim.
” In other words, it’s an open invitation to the underground. ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.
com Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the . Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. .
Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the ‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about , and . Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism.
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The Tales of Hoffmann Manitoba Underground Opera ● Club 200 (190 Garry St.) ● Through Sept. 29 ● Tickets: $20 to $30 at manitobaundergroundopera.
com Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the . Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. .
Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the ‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about , and . Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism.
If you are not a paid reader, please consider . Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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