Soprano Ella Taylor will step on stage to perform Tebaldo in Verdi’s Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House next month, the birthplace of the careers of opera singers like Joan Carlyle and Freddie de Tommaso. They have been dreaming about this exact moment – to share the same space as those performers. “When you’ve dreamt for so long of singing in that building and then it happens, you’re just nervous and it feels weird,” Taylor says. “I can’t wait to get in there and get started.”
As a young singer starting out, Taylor’s story was a journey of self-discovery. At age 10, they had spent most of their teen years as a female singer in a choir at Sheffield Cathedral. It was only 10 years later, during their MA Performance at the Royal Academy of Music, that they discovered opera singing and a way to present their non-binary self.
The first opera they stumbled across was an aria from Così Fan Tutte, suggested by their teacher at the academy. “I just fell in love with it and thought, ‘Oh, I really want to sing more of that’,” they say. “I loved the drum, the drama of it, but also that it made me sing properly with technique because it was so difficult that there was no choice other than to do that.”
Taylor always knew they were non-binary, but in their early 20s they decided it was the time to move away from rigid titles. “I’d been out as non-binary to my friends and family for three years before I decided to tell my colleagues,” they say.
I have to take the plunge and do the right thing
Ella Taylor
“It was definitely a choice to mix that part of my life with opera singing,” says Taylor. “It just really became unbearable to live my professional life as a soprano with everyone thinking I was a woman when I just am not one. I just thought I have to take the plunge and do the right thing, so now here I am.”
There was also a dilemma for Taylor – to change or not change their voice. Rather than taking testosterone and physically transitioning, they are at peace with themselves as they are. “I don’t believe that you have to take any hormones to be trans. I think if you say you’re trans, that’s good enough and everyone should just believe that,” they say. “I’ve been singing for almost 20 years now. I love my voice. It’s a big part of my identity and I just didn’t want to give that up.”
Taylor just wanted to go on stage, sing well and tell a story freely without the boundaries of gender. “People assume that I don’t want to play women on stage and that’s something my agent and I have been working hard for the past couple of years to prove untrue.”
Prior to their Royal Opera House debut, Taylor sang a Benjamin Britten opera in their first performance as an opera singer. “I actually sang Miles in the Turn of the Screw, which is normally sung by a boy treble,” they say. “I became obsessed with that one opera. Since then, I have sung lots of different styles of opera and I find that there’s something to love about all of them.”
As a public-facing figure and an opera singer, it became inevitable for Taylor to face misconceptions and criticism of their voice. “Most people assume that I’m a mezzo when they meet me,” they say. Mezzo-soprano is for those with a middle female vocal range. “People have a stereotypical view of what a mezzo is, which is someone with short hair,” they say. “When I start singing that quickly changes.”
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Costumes are also an essential part of an opera. Taylor is open to wearing different kinds of costumes when it comes to playing a character. Going along with the director’s vision and co-existing with the traditions of the opera is something they are comfortable with. “I played Belinda in Dido and Aeneas. I really liked the director, Isabelle Kettle’s kind of vision. And I really liked the costume for that because it was just really simple—a nice shirt and a pair of trousers,” they say.
Taylor loves avant-garde productions but believes traditions have their place. One of the reasons is the historical setting of operas. For example, their costumes in Don Carlo are very traditional and they respect that: “I’m wearing a big floppy hat and layers of velvet. I’ve got a sword and I’m wearing those little tights and those big wide trousers.”
While rewriting an opera is acceptable to them to a certain extent, Taylor believes the entire production shouldn’t be changed based on subjective preferences. However, they acknowledge that isn’t the case for everyone. “Stand up for yourself and do what makes you comfortable,” they say. “You shouldn’t compromise yourself to have the career you want.”
Despite being part of the 1% of opera singers who are trans, Taylor remains hopeful that attitudes will change. “I have to give up a lot of time to educate people when I first enter a production because I will inevitably be the first trans person that a lot of people will have ever met, let alone worked with.”
Taylor would rather sacrifice moments to educate people, rather than be misgendered and unintentionally disrespected during rehearsals. Taylor expresses the need to advocate for change and make a work environment safe for themselves. “Someone’s got to be out there doing it first,” Taylor says. “If that has to be me, then that’s fine. I don’t mind.”