Teiya Kasahara shares their journey as a Nikkei-Canadian transgender opera singer
Last week, the Music Conservatory at Mt.A welcomed Teiya Kasahara, an opera singer, to host vocal workshops for voice students, as well as the opportunity to perform in a recital with collaborative pianist, lecturer and newly inaugurated Sackville Arts Wall member, Jennie Del Motte on the piano. Self-identifying as “opera disrupter and interdisciplinary theatre creator,” Kasahara is a Nikkei-Canadian transgender opera singer whose singing and theatrical work “strive[s] to reimagine and broaden what canonical opera can be.”
Kasahara discovered opera at the age of 15, after he saw a recording of the opera Magic Flute by Mozart, and watched other opera singers practice their art. After finishing their undergraduate program at UBC, Kasahara moved to Toronto to study and work at the Canadian Opera Company. “I pushed my personal development down, tucked it away, so I could really focus on my craft, on singing, performing,” he said, talking about their first years in Toronto as a professional opera singer.
As a Japanese and queer artist, Kasahara talked about discrimination they have faced, and the need to conform to the European understanding of what a Japanese female-presenting person should look like in the often white and heteronormative environment of the opera industry. “I face specific discrimination for not looking Japanese enough because I don’t have the epicanthic fold and my nose bridge is… too prominent,” said Kasahara. “I felt a pressure from the [opera] industry to perform that type of femininity offstage; in the auditions, in the hallways, in my social time,” they said.
Kasahara identified embracing his queerness as one of the pivotal points towards making a change in their approach to opera and artistry. “My world opened up from the small microcosm of opera,” they said, talking about opening up to the idea of their queer identity and building relationships accordingly. Kasahara was able to “own [his] queerness by meeting [their wife] and other friends” and “rediscovering the Japanese Canadian community.” Through writing as well as speaking with queer and Japanese people, Kasahara was able to “gain more perspective and language” to communicate their feelings and experience.
Kasahara’s current project, titled Project T, is aimed to communicate their queer, and more specifically trans, identity where he invites the audience to join him on their journey of gender affirming hormone therapy.
Many years of attempts to live and work as a soprano, a label they were given upon entering the opera industry, cost Kasahara their identity as an artist and a human being. When Kasahara was faced with an option of starting testosterone, their immediate response was: “I can’t take T, it will change everything. It will change my voice which I’ve built my entire career on, but more so which I have built my identity on.” However, by learning about trans experiences first-hand from his friends and public figures, such as Elliot Page, it revealed “a pattern of getting strong emotional responses” as they were experiencing seeing people being visibly and unapologetically trans. This made Kasahara ask the question, “why am I still holding back on what I truly want to get validation from a handful cis old white men who run [opera] companies in Canada?”
Through a lot of self analysis and deep understanding of how the opera industry operates, and its systemic oppressive structures, Kasahara gave advice for a more inclusive and diversity centered future of the opera scene. “If we can do this in a care centered, thoughtful way, in terms of casting, it would be very special to be able to see more people fill these roles that pull from their cultural and ethnic backgrounds,” they said.
Finally, Kasahara said: “you can continue to play in their court, their rules, and it might push you down and it might not feel the greatest. Or you can create your own court, your own game, and say: this is opera too.”
If you would like to learn more about Kasahara’s work and plans, you can visit their website at https://www.teiyakasahara.com and social media at @teiyakasahara.