Ahead of the premiere of Melania, a new opera about The First Lady, which premieres at the Cockpit Theatre as part of the Tete a Tete festival, the opera singer Melinda Hughes describes her approach to writing political satire. Read her blow below.
When Trump first took office in 2016 and Melania was thrust into the spotlight, she caught everyone’s attention. Elusive and steely, she often broke convention as The First Lady causing speculation and controversy. I happened to be in New York performing my ‘Weimar & Back’ show at the Metropolitan Room. My last performance took place the day before he was sworn in.
The next day, I joined the Women’s March — or as many called it, the “Pussy March” — against Trump. A meme was circulating: “Melania, blink twice for help.” People couldn’t reconcile her inscrutable composure with the idea of being happily married to Donald. She became the perfect subject for satire, and soon I introduced Melania’s Diaries into my show, complete with Melania’s Lament, a song in which she fantasises about killing her husband in increasingly imaginative ways.
It wasn’t long before Bill Bankes-Jones, Artistic Director of the Tête à Tête Opera Festival, approached me. Would I consider writing a whole opera about Melania? At the time, I didn’t feel ready for such a challenge — so I politely declined.
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Finding my creative voice
Bill and I had known each other for years as I had sung lead soprano roles for companies such as Dorset Opera, Diva & Longborough Festival Opera. But in 2005 a serious neck injury forced me to scale back my stage work. It was during this period of recovery I sought more creative performance avenues and started writing with my pianist Jeremy Limb. To date, we have written over sixty songs, as well as ‘Margo’, a show about the Weimar cabaret singer Margo Lion which had a lot of success at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe.
The music of Weimar greats like Mischa Spoliansky, Kurt Weill, and Friedrich Hollaender has always inspired me — their blend of sharp wit, social commentary, and unforgettable melodies felt like the perfect template for modern political satire.
Jeremy proved to be my ideal writing partner. We’d both studied at the Royal College of Music but Jeremy, unbeknownst to me, was an established comedian and part of ‘The Trap’ with many Edinburgh Fringe seasons under his belt.
From Cabaret to Clemenzia
Of course I missed opera terribly. I was still performing on the concert platform and did the odd role here and there, but I was also attending a lot of standup comedy and improv courses to improve my skills. Then during the pandemic I created Clemenzia von Trunksale — an eccentric aristocratic opera diva who’s equal parts Dame Edna Everage and Joyce Grenfell. Clemenzia’s antics have taken her everywhere from private parties and festivals to performances for the President of Barbados and the Lord Mayor of London.
Clemenzia’s success confirmed something important: comedy is a powerful gateway to opera. People who had never set foot in an opera house told me, “I loved your show — now I want to go to an opera.” I’ve taken great pleasure in advising them which “entry level” operas to try, and which summer festivals provide magical experiences.
Saying Yes to Melania
My drive and ideas combined with Jeremy’s genius use of form, rhyme and harmonies have made us the perfect writing team. He takes my rough song ideas and passable lyrics and casts a magic wand over them. Often he’s too clever for his own good, so I have to nudge him into accessibility. Our audiences are smart, but they also want an easy tune and a laugh. Countless seasons at Edinburgh have taught me that.
The success of writing Margo made it easier to say yes when Bill approached me a second time about Melania. Persuading Jeremy was easy. He was excited to compose his first opera.
The plot is set in 2027, during Trump’s third year of his second term. Melania visits a school to deliver a speech for her anti-bullying campaign. But as she’s speaking, news breaks that Russia — having already annexed Ukraine and Romania — is now invading Slovenia, her homeland. Trump dismisses it as “not our problem,” triggering her moral crisis: should she remain loyal to him, or finally defy her bully-in-chief husband for the sake of humanity? The timing feels perfect. Rumours swirl about Melania’s quiet influence on Trump’s foreign policy, and in our opera she delivers the killer line: “Tito took no shit from Stalin — I won’t take no shit from Putin.”
Why opera and comedy need each other
I believe comedy offers opera a lifeline to new audiences. Many comedians are secret opera lovers — Chris Addison collaborates with the ENO, Stephen Fry and Bill Bailey are vocal supporters, and Joanna Lumley champions Grange Park Opera.
Opera lost much of its mainstream TV exposure years ago, and public perception lags behind reality. People still tag it as elitist. It’s a lazy slur as the supposed barriers (foreign languages, ticket prices, unfamiliar music) are surmountable. Popular operas are bursting with great tunes, most tickets are cheaper than a West End musical, and subtitles have made foreign librettos accessible to all.
My mission is to lure unsuspecting audiences through satire and comedy (NB tickets range from £6.50 to £29.50), leaving them hungry for more. If they walk away from Melania: The Opera saying, “I didn’t think opera was for me, but now I want to go again” — then I’ve succeeded.
Melania The Opera is at the Cockpit Theatre on September 25th; Tete-a-tete.org.uk