KISS MY SWORD
COMPOSER | Meta Cohen
LIBRETTIST | Evan Bryson
DIRECTOR/DRAMATURG | Alyson Campbell
Kiss My Sword is a new queer opera about the life of 17th century sword-fighter, opera singer and queer icon Julie D’Aubigny.
Julie D’Aubigny was an infamous persona: a lover of women, fencer, defeater of men in fencing duels and, indeed, opera singer notable for the creation of many operatic roles. Many - often contradictory - stories have been told about her, offering a rich tapestry for exploration. The opera is responding to this multiplicity in exciting ways.
This opera will delve into a life lived with audacity and our search for queer lineages throughout history, asking why we are still so drawn to Julie D’Aubigny today.
Opera coming 2026; song cycle coming 14 May 2025.
The first music from the opera will be presented as a song cycle as part of
Lyric Opera presents Kiss My Sword
14 May 2025, 7:30 PM, fortyfivedownstairs (Naarm/Melbourne, Australia)
fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival
We are very bad queers.
Some of us are afraid of dancing. Some of us don’t like ABBA. Some of us are old and out of fashion. Some of us just don’t get drag. Some of us are too femme. Some of us are too serious. Some of us have never been in fashion. Some of us really don’t 'love the nightlife'.
HOMO FOMO is a show exploring the rules that dictate ‘how to be a queer person’ and the ways they become fixed over time through repetition. It’s about nightclubs, which are more complex than usual representations of glitter, mirror balls and sweaty bodies suggest. We want to know: what do these rules do and what happens if you break them?
HOMO FOMO draws on intergenerational queer experiences to ask what it means to be part of ‘the queer community’ today, or indeed to feel that you are missing out on it.
HOMO FOMO
HOMO FOMO
CREATIVE TEAM
CONCEPT, COMPOSER, DRAMATURG, CO-CREATOR
Meta Cohen
DIRECTOR, DRAMATURG, CO-CREATOR
Alyson Campbell
COMING SOON