Classics such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Rent, Tommy, and The Rocky Horror Show are, of course, part of the lineup. It’s time to rethink an old genre – and expect plenty of surprises!

Opera Café presents curated, high-quality concerts in informal settings, where the audience gets close to outstanding opera singers.

We challenge both audiences and performers with a diverse program, highlighting queer, unique, and marginalized voices. In this way, we create a low-threshold meeting place that fosters dialogue, knowledge, and interest in opera, reaching a broad audience.

In collaboration with Queer Voices, we provide space and work for queer artists and stories. Queer performers and audience members have long been part of the opera community, and we aim to make room for stories that reflect their experiences. The audience gains insight into the music and the singer’s artistry through personal anecdotes and historical perspectives.

Opera Café has grown into a platform for artistic collaboration across genres, without hierarchy or the pursuit of status. We aim to reflect the diversity of society, and today our audience ranges from 18 to 90. Encounters across generations, cultures, and identities have become a natural part of our expression.

Stian Økland – Tenor (he/him)

Stian, from Bergen, is a highly versatile musician and singer. He is trained as a classical and opera singer from the Grieg Academy and the Wales International Academy of Voice, under Professor Dennis O’Neill and Nuccia Focile. He is no stranger to Trondheim, having been a permanent member of TVE between 2017 and 2020. As an operatic soloist, he has performed roles such as Rodolfo (La Bohème), Faust, Tamino (The Magic Flute), and Don José (Carmen) both in Norway and abroad.

His powerful, baritonal tenor voice can also be heard in the band Seven Impale — an internationally recognized progressive rock band which Økland founded in 2010. With three critically acclaimed studio albums, the band is predicted a bright future. In addition to singing, Økland plays guitar — his original main instrument — and he also writes lyrics and composes for the band.

Angelle Khachik — Soprano, Curator & Performance Artist (they/them)

Angelle is a curator, performance artist, opera singer, sound artist, and co-founder of Gestures & Nods; a platform for performance art and body-based practices, as well as co-founder of the Skeive Stemmer (Queer Voices) Opera Collective. As a performance artist who uses the voice as their main medium, Khachik is drawn to body-centered practices and collaboration-focused, horizontal processes.

Angelle has performed a wide range of operatic roles and has been a soprano soloist in numerous concerts and festivals across Norway and internationally. They have also collaborated on and worked with interdisciplinary music theatre projects.

Marte Arnesen – Soprano (she/her)

Marte is a young soprano currently living and working as a freelancer in Oslo. She studied with Elisabetta Lombardi in Fermo in March, but had already completed her bachelor’s degree in classical singing at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo, where she studied with Solveig Kringlebotn and Torgunn Birkeland. Marte has performed Second Lady in The Magic Flute, excerpts from Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, and Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Since 2021, Marte has performed on several occasions with the Queer Voices Opera Company.

She has sung excerpts from both Fenton and Falstaff in the Skeive Stemmer Opera Studio production in autumn 2021, and has been a popular guest soloist at the Opera Café in Trondheim, Operafest in Kristiansund, and a concert during Arctic Pride in Tromsø. Marte made her debut as Dr. Caius in autumn 2022 in the premiere of The Merry Wives of Windsor — A Guerrilla Opera with Queer Voices at Rosendal Teater.