The Florence Effect: How Giselle Bellas Found Her Voice
Photo Credit: Briana Chapman
Giselle Bellas sits across from me on Zoom, casually sampling what appears to be baby food. “My favorite snack,” she says with zero self-consciousness before diving into how her most triumphant creative moments emerge from near-disaster conditions. In an industry that demands polished perfection, Bellas is refreshingly, almost aggressively authentic—the rare artist whose greatest strength might be her refusal to color inside the lines.
“Most of the things I’ve done that I’m most proud of have been last-minute, chaotic,” she confesses. “Chaos works for me. It’s the ADD. I like waiting till the last minute.”
This isn’t the standard humblebragging of a perfectionist; this is Bellas’ actual creative method. Her recent NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest submission was “Santera”—a mesmerizing blend of salsa rhythms and personal storytelling that’s collected 8.7K views on YouTube and enthusiastic comments online—looks meticulously orchestrated with its vibrant choreography and ensemble performance. What viewers don’t see is the hectic improvisation behind the scenes.
“I was out salsa dancing the night before,” she says, still amazed by how it came together. “I was asking strangers, ‘Hi, you want to be in my video?’” A friend of Bellas’ cousin’s connected her with drummer Jose Ruiz. “Three hours before filming, I got this call from my friend Brian Radock: ‘I found the best conga player Orlando Sánchez—he’s down! I’ve sent him your song.’”
The result betrays none of this pandemonium—a testament to Bellas’ ability to transform chaos into something magnetic. It’s an approach that mirrors her career trajectory: a classically-trained singer who refused to be contained, a Cuban-American songwriter infusing jazz with Latin beats, a multimedia artist whose influences range from Florence + The Machine to Carmen.
What Florence Taught
Bellas’ most ambitious project yet—The Florence Foster Jenkins Schubertiade Review, set for a one-night show on March 8 at Jersey City Theater Center —emerged during the pandemic’s darkest period. ”I was singing at funerals,“ she remembers. “Ave Maria was paying the bills.”
During this professional nadir, an unlikely muse appeared: Florence Foster Jenkins, the infamous socialite known for her enthusiastic but pitch-challenged performances in the 1930s and 40s. Most remember Jenkins as the “world’s worst opera singer” who somehow managed to sell out Carnegie Hall, but Bellas recognized something revolutionary beneath the mockery.
“When I started researching, I was like, wait—as a woman, she created opera guilds, supported countless artists, and brought music to people during an incredibly difficult time,” Bellas explains, leaning into the camera with sudden intensity. “We laugh at this woman who was just living her best life, because why? It wasn‘t what we were used to hearing.”
Jenkins’ fearlessness became Bellas‘ guiding philosophy. ”Sometimes I think to myself: what would Florence do? And most of the time it’s like, not give a shit about anything,“ she says, laughing. ”If I want to wear this costume, I‘m gonna wear it. I don’t care anymore.“
Breaking the Mold
Photo Credit: Briana Chapman
For Bellas, born in Miami to Cuban immigrants, the path to opera was accidental. “I didn’t grow up with classical music. I grew up with Latin music, with Celia Cruz,” she explains. “I had this voice teacher who said, ‘I think you can sing opera.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what that means.’ She told me to go see Tosca. Then I was like, ‘You think I could do that?’”
Her natural talent took her from Miami to New York, where she further experienced the structured approach of classical music. One teacher’s method was transformative: “She said, ‘You’re not doing any more auditions or singing songs. We’re just singing on vowels for six months and art songs.’” Bellas recalls her initial disbelief: “I went from doing all these roles to doing nothing. But in the end, taking that time off definitely was helpful.”
While this foundation proved valuable, the opera world’s unwritten rules became increasingly difficult to navigate. A pivotal moment came during an important audition. “It was the second-to-last round, and the whole time they just kept talking about my blue nails,” she recalls, still incredulous. “‘Oh my God, she’s so Miami.’ I wasn’t wearing the right outfit, I wasn’t the right type. I started trying to make opera more accessible by adding guitar and doing other things, but I was always being told to be something I wasn’t.”
Even in choral settings, her powerful voice was treated as a liability rather than an asset. “I kept being told to be quiet because I was too loud,” she says. “I was doing so well in solos. But in choir, I was lip-syncing half the time.” This early disconnect speaks to a larger issue in classical music—some practitioners’ reluctance to venture too far beyond tradition. When Bellas looks at opera’s most successful contemporary stars, she sees the rare performers who’ve transcended those constraints. “Nadine Sierra… She’s at another level. The way she feels singing opera is how I feel singing everything else. She’s comfortable, confident, having fun.”
Heritage Through Music
Writing her own music finally allowed Bellas to explore her Cuban heritage on her own terms, most powerfully in “Santera,” which tells the story of her eldest aunt’s reluctant departure from Cuba. “My family came here through the lottery system—you have 24 hours to leave,” she explains. “My aunt had a completely different life in Cuba. She practiced the Yoruba religion and was very high in that spiritual tradition. She was like a High Priestess.”
The song explores the cultural displacement of immigration with remarkable nuance. “The Yoruba religion isn’t accepted here. When my aunt came, she had to hide who she was,” Bellas says. “So her calling herself ‘Santera’ became a proclamation: ‘This is who I am.’”
This complex narrative is set to a dance rhythm—a juxtaposition that Bellas sees as culturally authentic. “That‘s very common where you’re dancing but the lyrics are really sad. We’ve this saying—things are so bad that you have to laugh. It’s part of the culture to dance it out.”
Despite the song’s powerful message, Bellas reveals it almost never saw the light of day. “I had it sitting in a voice memo for years thinking it would never go anywhere,” she confesses. It wasn’t until she brought it to songwriter and arranger Francisco Valentín Ocasio that the piece truly took form. “He helped bring it to life and made a beautiful arrangement,” she says, another instance of creative collaboration yielding something beautiful.
Rewriting a Legacy
The Florence Foster Jenkins Schubertiade Review is a multimedia production featuring 20 artists across various disciplines. Thanks to grant funding, Bellas’ been able to assemble a remarkable creative team and address representation in meaningful ways.
“Florence had syphilis, which she contracted from her much older first husband when she was just 14,” Bellas explains. “We believe it affected her brain and her ability to hear properly. She was a great musician—she played piano for presidents when she was very young—so how could she not know how she sounded? We’re exploring that compassionately.” Bellas shares that Florence was a woman with a disability, and she believed someone who has a disability should play her voice. “That’s Regan Linton. She’s making all this incredible work,” she says.
What makes the production truly groundbreaking, though, is how it repositions Jenkins from punchline to pioneer. “In the show, Florence basically puts me in my place,” Bellas admits. “Here I am complaining about everything—’I can’t do this, what will people think?’—meanwhile, Florence faced unimaginable challenges, and just created anyway.”
The production balances entertainment with cultural excavation, bringing to light the often-overlooked contributions of women in classical music. “I went to the New York Public Library and looked at all her papers. She helped Lily Pons and so many others. It’s kind of like Mozart’s sister—we don’t realize these women did a lot of really awesome things.”
Inspiring Creative Action
For Bellas, success isn’t merely measured by streaming numbers or critical acclaim, but also by creating space for authentic expression. This manifests in how she assembles her team. “I have very talented friends, and I want to showcase them,” she explains. “If my drummer or sax player does well, I do well. It’s all about wanting to do well, so we can lift each other up.”
At a time when many artists feel pressured to specialize and fit into marketable categories, Bellas remains committed to artistic honesty. “When I get feedback on grant applications, it’s hilarious,” she says. “One judge didn’t like ‘Santera,’ another couldn’t believe the same person wrote both songs. It’s like, what do I do with that?”
What she does is trust her instincts and embrace the beautiful chaos of creation—a philosophy that would make Florence Foster Jenkins proud. As Bellas prepares for her show, she embodies the spirit of her unlikely muse: fearlessly authentic, unconcerned with fitting into prescribed boxes, and determined to create space for voices that defy convention.
The ultimate reward for Bellas comes from inspiring others. “The biggest compliment that I get after the show is, ‘Hey, you made me want to create something.’ Or, ‘Hey, I saw your show and did this, this and this.’ And I’m like, that’s the whole point—just do it.”
The Florence Foster Jenkins Schubertiade Review will be performed at Jersey City Theater Center on March 8 at 7:00 PM.
-written by Chloe Yang.