Lucia Lucas, with her long flowing hair and soft voice is a genuine Opera diva. When she opens her mouth to sing…a rich baritone voice (baritone is a type of classical male singing voice) fills the air.
Lucia is a transgener female, and while she tells us that fact is a very small part of her overall being, it is certainly the hook for the very engaging documentary The Sound of Identity. And why is that?
Because Lucia has just become the first transgender woman to be cast as an Opera lead in America, in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma!
Director James Kicklighter starts the film with 30 days to go before Lucas will make her American debut. The next month will be fraught with concern – will people buy tickets? Can she get people into the Opera house who’ve never been before? Will there be a backlash?
It’s a good narrative device, and as the countdown to the historic performance continues, we learn a bit about her coming out journey, personally and professionally. Not surprisingly, early life wasn’t easy for someone who knew they were in the wrong body – what is surprising is that we don’t learn more basic facts, which is my only criticism. After watching the film, I had to go to Wikipedia to find the answers to basic questions, like where she grew up, that should have been easy drop-ins for the film.
That said, Kicklighter’s decision to tell a backstage tale that focuses on rehearsals and the public relations work is hard to argue with. Certainly, the viewer is hooked and roots for the entire cast and crew, not just Lucas. We also see Lucia facetime with her wife and, later, greeting her family backstage – a moment that we fear could go sideways.
A kind of bonus is the inclusion of Tobias Picker, the artistic director of the Tulsa Opera Company, who has maybe put his own career on the line by hiring a transgender performer. Picker, a noted composer, has a great backstory and could have easily been a fascinating sole subject of his own film. At the age of 66, Picker was a gay teenager during the Stonewall riots, and lived through the AIDS crisis and, if that weren’t enough, he has Tourette’s syndrome (we do not see any effects on camera).
I don’t know anything about Opera, but it was nice to learn that the title character of Don Giovanni is a “master of disguise” and a textbook example of “toxic masculinity,” which makes for a nice primer and an apt, if obvious, context for what is happening within the film.
The Sound of Identity is available June 1 on digital and on demand | 3 out of 4 Stars | Reviewed by Kyle Osborne
