Review: MONÉT X CHANGE & GUESTS at Staatstheater Wiesbaden
From Bel Canto to Beyoncé - where opera meets drag excellence
Global drag excellence conquers the acclaimed “International May Festival” in Wiesbaden: Drag superstar Monét X Change, for one night only. Somewhere between opera, pop, and chanson unfolds a glittering gala concert evening – at times dreamy, at times exalted – unlike anything the sophisticated grand hall of the spa city has accommodated before.
The “International May Festival” in Wiesbaden has existed since 1896, during the late Imperial era, and in 2026 celebrates its 130th anniversary with 270 artists from 28 nations. Every May, the Wiesbaden State Theatre brings outstanding opera, drama, dance, and concert productions from around the world to its stages, combining tradition with contemporary accents. Opera icon Maria Callas, classical superstar Enrico Caruso, and Bel Canto legend Edita Gruberová were among the most celebrated guests of this month-long festival series’ history.
Just two days after musical theatre star Katharine Mehrling and her program dedicated to composer Kurt Weill, audiences at the “Großes Haus” were in for a special show that promised to merge the art form of drag with the lavish world of opera. This was reflected in a strikingly mixed crowd filling the theatre’s opulent foyer: alongside silver-haired patrons in evening wear and party ladies in glittering boleros, there were also young men in pup-play masks and crop tops, voguing with giant fans. A visual collision between what one expects from this esteemed festival series and what was on the program that evening. That it all comes together so successfully in the end – and sweeps the entire audience from their seats – demonstrates just how unifying the art and entertainment form of drag can be.
And that drag is far more than a polished mug, sky-high styled wigs, sultry showdance, splits, death drops, and gorgeous reveals – every fan of “RuPaul's Drag Race” has known that for a long time already – is showcased impressively throughout the evening. Monét X Change is a global phenomenon. As an “All Stars” winner of the worldwide TV franchise in which drag queens compete against one another in all kinds of categories, she has made a name for herself unlike almost anyone else who has emerged from the show. She has proven to be an outstanding entertainer across countless incarnations of the popular drag franchise. One of her many talents is classical singing, which takes center stage this evening. Joining Monét is musical theatre performer Fausto Israel, whose drag persona Kelly Heelton is among the pioneers of Germany’s drag mainstream: she was one of the successful contestants on the first season of “Drag Race Germany”. Tenor Joshua Sanders, a member of the Wiesbaden State Theatre ensemble, also gets to present his dazzling side to local audiences as the cabaret- and vaudeville-inspired drag queen Pretty Lamé. Completing the glittering queen lineup is Australian soprano Sharon Kempton.
The setlist moves fluidly between classical opera from Vincenzo Bellini, Franz Lehár, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, chansons in the style of Édith Piaf or Kurt Weill, musicals such as “Les Misérables” and “La Cage aux Folles”, immortal Harold Arlen hits from the Great American Songbook, all the way to pop interludes by Dua Lipa and Monét X Change’s very own songs. A colorful mixture that works above all because drag embraces everything, the performers live between the genres, and the audience absolutely loves and frenetically celebrates exactly that.
There is no shortage of vocal highlights throughout the evening, which is superbly underscored by the Hessian State Orchestra Wiesbaden under Paul Taubitz and cohesively choreographed by Thomas Helmut Heep. The dance quintet – Enzo Boffa, Gorka Duran Villar, Alessio Pirrone, Marcos Novais, and Benjamin Wilson – complements the dazzling stage personalities perfectly, with especially memorable choreographic moments emerging during Kelly Heelton’s song numbers and Kempton’s solo performance of “Je ne regrette rien,” alternating between dreamy elegance and fierce intensity.
Kempton and Pretty Lamé performing the Garland/Streisand duet “Happy Days Are Here Again / Get Happy” becomes one of the evening’s vocal showstopper moments, lingering long afterward. During Kempton’s “Over the Rainbow,” the audience can visibly be seen humming along, deeply moved. Pretty Lamé reveals an overwhelmingly powerful tenor voice with a belt that fills the venerable theatre halls, but is equally capable of delicate, fragile tones in “Pure Imagination” from “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory” – this performer is unmistakably at home in the world of vocal storytelling. To “Don’t Start Now”, “Freed from Desire”, and “Feeling Good”, Kelly Heelton truly fires up the audience with flawless vocals, the strongest drag looks of the evening, and sparkling choreography.
With “Lost in the Stars” on one side, Mozart’s “O Isis und Osiris” and Lehár’s “Lippen schweigen” from “Die lustige Witwe” on the next, and her own pop song “Body” on the other, Monét X Change ultimately showcases a vocal range equally capable of effortlessly handling classical, soulful, and pop-infused material. With a fulminant quartet rendition of “I Am What I Am” and an encore by Monét of her hit “Bitch, I’m Beyoncé” in the finest and fiercest drag tradition, both opera lovers and “Drag Race” fans got exactly what they came for. The audience leaves the buoyant evening – sadly far too short – uplifted, an evening that could easily have sustained another handful of songs from across genres in order to do full justice to both the artists and the audience alike.
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