History in the making is so much better than history repeating.
Meet Lucia Lucas, a American transgender woman – Sacramento in the house! – and an international opera star, who became the first trans person ever to perform a principal role on an operatic stage in the United States of America, when she sang and acted the title role in a Tulsa Opera production of Don Giovanni (her first lead, too) in May 2019. This life-affirming part of Lucas’ groundbreaking journey is chronicled in The Sound of Identity, a documentary set to premiere on digital and On Demand on June 1.
Directed by James Kicklighter, The Sound of Identity captures the baritone on the cusp of international stardom (she went on to shatter more ceiling glass later in 2019, when she featured in an English National Opera production of Orpheus in the Underworld), and details the collaboration between Lucas and her mentor, Tobias Picker, the artistic director of the Tulsa Opera…as well as the pressures of being the first while, y’ know, simply being.
“In profiling the professional journey of Lucia Lucas,” said Kicklighter in a press release, “I believe I have also made the most personal film of my own career, a universal story of all the experiences that make up the people we choose to become. Through telling [her] story today, in an era where trans visibility is unprecedented, we examine the strides that have been made, but also, the long road ahead for this marginalized community.”
Hear, hear, indeed.
King of Cups 