Gary A. Hall ('92, voice) is a drag queen with a five-octave range. As his alter-ego Shequida, he brings opera to the young and the old, gay and straight, believers and skeptics, with equal passion. Born in Jamaica (not Queens, as he points out), he has the soul of an Italian diva, and he never sacrifices the quality of the music he makes.
Shequida
Gary Hall combines his deep love of opera and his unusual vocal range in his performances as Shequida, hoping to bring arias to a new audience. Noting that younger people aren't running to the opera, he strives to shake the dust off the art form's reputation. He explains, "I chose to teach and entertain at the same time. I believe that opera in its day was meant as entertainment just as pop music is today. I think we lose sight of the fact that it should be entertaining." With this philosophy, he created the show Opera for Dummies, a crash course in the art form and some of its comical elements, including a plus-size diva playing a 16-year-old consumptive girl. His sophomore offering, Popera, imagines the collisions between the operatic and pop worlds (like Aretha Franklin singing "Nessun Dorma" at the Grammy Awards).A male soprano, Hall refuses to make compromises in singing operatic repertoire, whatever jokes he might make at the expense of operatic conventions. "I try to take some of the funny things in opera and turn them around, but in the end, the one thing I always stress is that I do pay complete respect and homage to the music," he says. Many listeners are impressed by his voice but don't believe he's a man—or that he's singing at all. "The fact that I do it in drag, everyone assumes I'm lip-synching. When I tell them I'm not lip-synching, they say, 'Well, you must be a woman.'" But he doesn't mind this skepticism as long as the audience members get something out of the show. He accepts that part of his appeal is the novelty of his skills. "I read somewhere that there are only 20 or 22 men in the world that can sing from bass/baritone all the way up to soprano."Hall left school before completing his degree, deciding that it wasn't the right environment for him at the time. "I'm really grateful that I got the opportunity to go to Juilliard. I think personally I wasn't ready for that intense atmosphere." He was 18, living alone, and feeling overwhelmed by the demands of being a student at Juilliard. "I didn't feel I was nurtured as a person. I felt I was being used as an instrument," he says. Hall never broached the subject of singing female repertoire with instructors at school and felt that he was being pigeonholed into areas of repertoire that didn't make sense or he didn't enjoy. "People were telling me to sing 'Old Man River'!" Despite fears of disappointing his parents, he made the difficult decision to leave.Hall urges young singers to listen to their bodies and to step back if something feels uncomfortable. "A lot of people are going to care about your instrument, so you really need to take care of yourself. Listen to your heart," he says. He adds that each artist should be the authority on what's best for his or her future. "If you're saying, 'I don't want to be in opera. I want to be in musical theater,' and your teachers are saying, 'No, you're going to be an opera singer,' take a little time, don't rush it, but find out what it is you really love. Make sure that you love opera. Without a love of opera, it's never going to happen."And Hall has made plenty happen through his love of the art form. On the horizon is a recording contract, a show with Cirque du Soleil, and the title role in the staged premiere of Daron Hagen's one-act opera Vera of Las Vegas at Symphony Space on June 26 and 27. He is excited about this new challenge: "I've sold the character of Shequida. I think people are wanting to see whether I can do more than play myself."—Lisa Yelon
