Melania Trump takes on Putin in London opera

On the eve of Donald Trump’s first inauguration, Melinda Hughes was performing at the Met Room in New York. “The air in the room was heavy; you could feel the tension,” recalls the London soprano. “The next day, I joined the Women’s March through the city streets while the #FreeMelania meme was circulating online.”

The singer decided to include these and other parodies about the U.S. first lady in the still-running program of her cabaret Weimar & Back, including a rap about Melania’s early days in the White House and a burlesque number inspired by the most incendiary pages of a fictional diary. “Her silence worried us,” Hughes says. “That’s why at the protests we were all shouting: ‘Melania, blink twice if you need help!’”

Then the phone rang. It wasn’t the FBI, but Bill Bankes-Jones, artistic director of Tête à Tête, a festival dedicated to chamber opera in alternative spaces in London. “He asked me if I was ready to write a full opera about Melania, and although I was very flattered by the offer, I told him no.” At the time, Hughes was working with pianist Jeremy Limb on a large-scale show about the life of Margo Lion, a key figure in Berlin cabaret during the Weimar Republic, brought to life through songs by Brecht, Hindemith, and Spoliansky. “The premiere of Margo at the Edinburgh Fringe was such a success that I felt up for anything.” This time, it was Bill’s phone that started buzzing.

Hughes had met Limb in the late 1990s at the Royal College of Music, but they didn’t become a creative duo until much later. “In 2007, I had just suffered a neck injury that forced me to step back temporarily from opera theaters, and he was living a double life as a comedian and improviser.” Cabaret gave them the chance to stretch their musical talent with lyrics pulled from tabloids, turned into playful political satire — like the show Clemenzia von Trunksale, starring an aristocratic prima donna prowling the halls of Buckingham Palace. “We took it to all kinds of venues,” she says. “We even performed private shows for important people, like the president of Barbados and a Lord Mayor of London.”

The libretto of Melania: The Opera takes place in a dystopian yet highly believable 2027. “The first lady visits a school in Rancho Skunk, a fictional town in Florida, to give a speech for her anti-bullying campaign,” says Hughes. “Then the school principal informs her that Russia has just invaded Slovenia, her native country.”

The first statements from her husband appear on her phone screen: loyal to the America First doctrine, Trump brushes off the attack and continues playing golf at Mar-a-Lago. “Melania feels she has to take a stand and asks for a pencil to correct the papers she is about to read.” What she will say — or keep silent about — will be revealed on Thursday, during the most anticipated premiere of the Tête à Tête festival.

For the British artist, humor “is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transmitted,” so she hopes that the audience attending the two performances at the Cockpit Theatre, near Church Street Market, will enjoy it “at least half as much” as she did while composing the opera.

“I provide the first melodic sparks, which Limb then seasons with his magic powder to give it coherence and structure,” she explains about working with the pianist. “Jeremy has the ability to turn a quick napkin note into a brilliant sketch, but sometimes he gets so clever that he loses track of the audience we are addressing. It is very important to me that cabaret serves as a gateway to opera for those unfamiliar with the genre.”

The libretto is riddled with double entendres, veiled messages, and even tongue-twisters about the U.S. president’s appearance (“orange”), attitude (“bully”), and excesses (“pronounced Epstein”). “The most grotesque caricature pales in comparison to reality, but just in case, we’ve hired a lawyer specializing in defamation lawsuits,” Hughes admits. “We eliminated scenes with Barron, whom the Trumps worship as a messiah, and softened some of the dialogue.” The opera reaches its climax when Melania resolves her dilemma and announces: “If [Josip Broz] Tito didn’t put up with shit from Stalin, I won’t put up with shit from Putin.” She then sings the aria Enough!, in which she proclaims that she will accept no more lies, secrets, or humiliation.

The score combines the best of classic Charlottenburg cabarets and Broadway musicals, draws on Copland’s songbook and the pyrotechnics of Bel Canto arias, and even dares to throw in a Christian rock number (Thoughts and Prayers). “We also included a Slovenian folk song, in which the first lady relives her days at a school in Svenica.”

Just after finishing the first draft, the soprano learned from the press that, in his latest crusade against “woke” culture and the cultural elite, Trump had proposed to his Republican allies in Congress that the Kennedy Center in Washington be renamed the First Lady Melania Trump Opera House. “Can anyone think of a better publicity stunt?” Hughes exclaims.

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