San Cha | Inebria Me

An experimental, genre-bending opera of queer liberation, melodrama, and divine transformation.

Inebria Me adapts visionary Los Angeles-based composer, musician, and performance artist San Cha’s 2019 album, La Luz de la Esperanza, into an experimental opera that queers and dispels the cisgender and heteronormative archetypes that dominated the telenovelas of San Cha’s youth. The opera introduces Dolores, a beauty of humble means who, after marrying wealthy Salvador, finds herself caught in a web of jealousy and abuse. During a particularly dark moment, Esperanza, a genderless being of light and empowerment, visits Dolores, giving her strength to escape Salvador’s control and realize her true value.

Inebria Me’s captivating story and libretto are driven by San Cha’s personal and artistic influences: rural Mexican immigrant family life, Catholic church choir, Bay Area drag performance, and cross-border experiences. With a live sound score fusing ranchera, cumbia, mariachi, punk, classical, and electro, integrated with innovative lighting, scenic, video, and visual design, Inebria Me celebrates the liberating power of ascendant relationships.

With Inebria Me, San Cha adeptly merges the structural framework of opera with the emotive essence of melodramatic telenovelas, honoring and subverting both at once, and asserting queer Black and Brown presence and perspectives on an opera stage. Embracing the tropes of internal dialogue and flashback sequences common in the telenovela genre, San Cha constructs a narrative arc that defies linear conventions, offering a nuanced exploration of tragedy and love.

A central facet of the work lies in its representation of gender binaries through the art of drag, to challenge societal norms with a deliberate exaggeration of gender roles. The cast, musicians, and creative team reflect the diverse spectrum of queerness and cultural identity intrinsic to the piece.