Pride Month Spotlight: A Sweet Unrest
An exclusive #360ofOpera interview with opera singer Lucas Bouk. Written by Yutong Yang, with photography by Karjaka Studios.
I saw Lucas Bouk (he/him) for the first time on a 12.5-hour-long flight from Hong Kong to London, in the shape of a newspaper article. I was a timid queerling curled up in a not-so-spacious seat; he was Sarah, in all his glory onstage and in print, a star from the opera Stonewall, produced to honor the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. I thought he winked at me. I smiled back, unsure of myself, unable to believe my eyes. I mean, there is music for people like me? It felt like an Andrea Gibson prophecy come true.
With the space of two years and many harsh lessons in between, I can now appreciate how symbolic that encounter was—my very own rite of passage. I remember meticulously tearing out the tiny block of news with the utmost reverence, carefully folding it up into a neat square, and tucking it into my pocket. I lost that snippet in the chaos of travels, but I’d already carved every word of it into the finest fibers of my aching queer heart. So you bet I’m super pumped to share with you Lucas’s quest for his true self!
1. Please forgive a Stonewall fan for wanting to satiate her curiosity first~ What was your favorite moment in Stonewall?
My favorite moment, the moment that has meant the most to me in the last year, comes at the end of the opera with its closing lines when an ensemble cast sings “much to be done”—It is beautiful in the show, and I also hear it as an important call to action when I look at the wave of anti-trans laws being passed in so many U.S. states.
2. When they wrote this New York Times article back in 2019, you weren’t prepared to transition yet. What has prompted you to make such a brave decision?
Honestly, I love singing and performing so much that I couldn’t imagine taking the time off to take testosterone and re-train. Whenever I was on stage I got a break from the feeling of gender dysphoria—the stage was a place where I could escape and become someone else. Playing different characters onstage made me feel fully alive & deeply at peace. I didn’t want to give that up for even a little bit. I always imagined that I’d begin my physical transition once I’d retired.
The pandemic forced me to take a break from live performance. In September 2020 I decided to begin my physical transition. I started at the lowest dose possible, and took virtual lessons with my voice teacher, Katherine Ciesinski, weekly. She has been such a supportive and nurturing mentor throughout my coming out and is an incredible vocal technician. She helped me build a strong foundation in advance of the change to come, and the change came in April when my baritone range finally settled and started to fill out.
3. All these critics were saying such nice things about your voice prior to COVID! Here’s just a few: You’ve been praised for your “silky mezzo” (New York Times), your “shimmering alto” (Observer), and your “impressive firmly-grounded contralto” (Opera News). It must have been really hard to let it all go——
The hardest part has been being patient and gentle with myself. Re-training is not a process that can be rushed or forced in any way.
Right now it takes extra time to learn a song. I start with singing on vowels, note by note, phrase by phrase, taking as many breaks as needed. When I can sing entire phrases with beautiful tone I start to add the words. After I have enough stamina to sing sections of the song with ease, I finally start singing the song in its entirety. Once the song settles into my voice, I add personal touches such as dynamics, color choices, more specific phrasing, etc. to make the song my own.
4. Hopefully you’ve been having a relatively smooth transition! What has been your biggest concern?
My biggest concern regarding the vocal transition (besides it taking at least a year) has been vocal entrapment. As a post-pubescent transman, my larynx has finished growing. If my vocal folds become too thick, they can become entrapped within a larynx that isn’t quite large enough, resulting in a less than optimal vocal production.
To counter this possibility, I’ve been having weekly voice lessons, coachings, and am microdosing my testosterone. Whenever I have felt vocal changes happening too fast, I reduced the (already low) dosage of testosterone until the voice felt stable and flexible. I had several mezzo-soprano recording projects early on in my time on testosterone and to prepare for each of those, I took extremely low doses to make sure I didn’t have to face any unexpected vocal changes. Microdosing testosterone has resulted in a very steady, gradual vocal change and I am very pleased with the results thus far!
5. We really don’t want to rush you, but have you been making plans for your baby (baritone voice) already?
This summer I’m delving into Italian art songs, bits of musical theater, and new music by Bea Goodwin (@be_goodwin), Felix Jarrar (@the_original_fefe) & Whitney George (@whitney.e.george). I’ll be focusing on legato singing, beautiful tone, clear vowels and healthy vocal production. By Fall I aim to add operatic arias to my repertoire and begin auditioning as a baritone.
6. Wow, some rather familiar names here! Tell us a bit about the beautiful musical friendships you’ve forged over the years!
I met Felix Jarrar & Bea Goodwin in Fall of 2017, right after I had realized that I was transgender. We were working together on their new opera, A Christmas Carol, and I was playing the role of Mrs. Cratchit. Bea ended up being one of the first people I told about my personal journey. Bea & Felix helped me feel comfortable navigating the feminine role I was playing, and respected my privacy.
In Spring of 2018 I was ready to come out to the world as a trans-man. To celebrate the occasion, Bea & Felix wrote Tristan Tzara in Tabula Rasa specifically for me. Tzara’s aria celebrates new beginnings, breaking from convention, and the power of the creative spirit. I loved it.
7. Opera has such an interesting tradition of pants roles. What do you think makes a voice “feminine” or “masculine”?
My own understanding of all these issues has grown immensely. When I first came out I talked about my mezzo voice as “female” but I’ve realized that voices don’t need to be gendered. It would be much better to start referring to voices without bringing in gender.
8. A similar yet age-old question: What’s in a name? What makes a name “male” or “female”?
Those are big and important questions and not ones I can really answer. I can talk about my experience with my name. After I came out I adopted Liz as my new name and Mr. Liz as a nickname that I am still really fond of. It is not a dead name for me, even now. I changed my name to Lucas because I was tired of people saying Liz and then “she”. It wasn’t the Liz part that stung—it was the “she”. I do love it, though, when I hear people call me Lucas. That feels good.
9. As a versatile artist who engages in various aspects of the opera world and beyond, what are your suggestions for everyone—the singers, the composers, the management, the public, the government, etc.—on making opera more inclusive?
I think everyone should check out this pledge put forward by the Black Opera Alliance. They have done an amazing job thinking about how opera can be more inclusive.
We need to do similar work for gender inclusivity as well, but in the meantime I can think of a couple simple things:
Use non-gendered language when setting dress codes for auditions, masterclasses, and other events (which means: don’t tell all men to wear suits and women to wear dresses and heels, which right now happens often; do tell all singers to wear professional attire or something like that);
Put up signs in bathrooms and dressing rooms that say something like “Individuals have the right to use facilities consistent with their gender identity” and should use gender-neutral signage for single-stall restrooms or individual dressing rooms; ideally, dressing rooms would not be organized in a binary to begin with;
Some companies use gendered costume forms too, and they shouldn’t. Instead they should use the same costume form for everyone, and ask which dressing room a person will use rather than ask their gender.
Those are some ideas to start with. Many companies still have a long way to go to create safe, supportive, and inclusive spaces.
Scouting Lucas’s website for fun facts was exhilarating, like catching up with an old friend, but talking to him was another thing altogether. Lucas is sweet, really sweet. You feel safe and peaceful with him even when the exchange is going to visceral places, or sustaining a wild twist. He respects boundaries, but that doesn’t keep him from loving his friends with adorable fierceness. Yet under this surface of thoughtfulness and gentility, I was starting to sense a sort of unrest, a constant urge to push beyond the self, to learn, to challenge, and to embrace.
Hence, the title of this interview. It’s from a Keats poem I’d always loved, but thought too good to be true—now I know better. Awake for ever in a sweet unrest. This is the conscious state of mind we all crave. Again, much to be done.
-Yutong Yang