Lucia Lucas

The transgender opera diva and Accent cover star

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Meet Lucia Lucas, opera singer, transgender woman and advocate, and one of our Issue Two double cover stars. Despite recommendations that she, as a baritone, should “get a day job” until the age of 40 before working professionally, Lucia is now in her 30s and has already built a successful career performing opera internationally. Following her recent transition, she still plays male roles 90 per cent of the time she appears on stage, maintaining that “I wouldn’t want a person to think a woman was playing the character unless they looked down at their programme.”

“I came out to the opera community at a ball with my wife — she wore a trouser suit and I wore a dress. People didn’t recognise me at first — they recognised my wife, then looked at me and eventually they figured it out. Being able to see their genuine reactions was helpful; I came out the next week. I told the intendant that I liked my job and hoped I could continue to do it, but this was something I had to do for myself; it was something I’d been putting off forever. He said: ‘OK, how does this work?” I replied: “Well, nobody’s ever done it before.'”

Read Lucia’s full story with photographs by Alice Neale in Issue 2, which you can buy here.

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Lucia wears: Coat by Givenchy; trousers Anna Scholz, jumper by Givenchy; jacket model’s own, underwear model’s own, earring by Bill Skinner

Photographer — Alice Neale
Photographer’s Assistant — Hannah Burton
Stylist — Rachael J Vick
Make-up — Naomi Serene
Retouching — Signe Emma

Produced by Accent Magazine