Review: Operotica: Lovers in Every Lifetime, Underbelly Bristo Square

Amber Reeves and Dani Croston, the classically trained Operotica duo, are on a mission: to reimagine opera as an inclusive, radical, and brazenly queer art form for modern audiences. If you want to hear all your favourite arias while watching an inventive series of stripteases featuring some rather bejazzled dildoes, this is the show for you. Perhaps you didn’t know that you needed this surprising combination in your life: after Lovers in Every Lifetime, you will.

Croston and Reeves are joined by Dan Wye, our wisecracking, alliteration-pun-loving drag queen who ties together the story of cursed lovers repeatedly thwarted from throwing off their curse and putting their extremely horny souls to rest. The plot is as flimsy as some of the outfits the two singers strip down to, but it’s no worse than many of the actual comic operas the songs are drawn from: The Marriage of Figaro, for example, in which a horny count wishes to bed a young serving girl on the night before her marriage but is thwarted by a switched-identities plot with the countess, or Die Fledermaus, an elaborate revenge story for this one time somebody had to do the walk of shame dressed as a bat because his friend abandoned him drunk after a costume party, or Così fan Tutte, where two smug young gentlemen disguise themselves as Albanians and sing a merry little song about their triumphant mustaches. In short, horny lovers doomed to repeat their erotic quest for satisfaction is not so far-fetched as an operatic subject.

I’d love to mention which specific arias Reeves and Croston sing, but alas have not the knowledge to name them without prompting; you’ll recognise them if you heard them, though. The duo’s classical training is evident throughout; the singing would be lovely to listen to on its own, but the joy of the show is the shock of these classical songs gleefully paired with pasties, a fan dance, and various bits of fetish wear. Perhaps the oddest bit of the evening is a stint set in the 1970s with the two dressed as cats, meowing their way through an aria. This does seem a tiny bit out of keeping with the rest of the show, but if the classical composer Strauss can write a song known widely as “The Laughing Aria,” I don’t see why there can’t be a Meowing Aria to boot.

Wye adds a brilliant note of showmanship in character as dubious mystic Séayoncé, cajoling us when we’re not involved enough. She says  “honestly it’s like the worst rollercoaster at Butlins listening to you lot” when we fail to be sufficiently frightened during the scary bit, stealing an audience member’s nose, laughing with us and at us, and at themselves. Wye’s warmth and humour is a very welcome additional seasoning to the already excellent ingredients of this show.

The costumes are exquisite and surprisingly modular as our singers deftly shed layers while their voices soar and swoop in characteristic classical style. Surely opera is enough of a talent; it’s too much to expect a brilliantly choreographed striptease at the same time, and yet here we are. 

If you’re looking for something a bit different than standard queer cabaret, give this a try. It hits all the right notes.

Created by Amber Reeves and Dani Croston (Operotica)
Developed with Dan Wye
Music: Robyn Herfellow until Sunday 16 August
Music: Michael Bascom from Monday 17 August

Operotica: Lovers in Every Lifetime runs at Underbelly Bristo Square until Sunday 30 August