What Happens When Opera, Kink And Comedy Get Locked In A Haunted Parlour?

By Grace Hatchell

Operotica: Lovers in Every Lifetime comes to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 at Underbelly Bristo Square’s Dairy Room, bringing queer opera, dark comedy, vaudeville theatrics and a rather saucy haunted parlour to the city from 5 to 30 August. Created by Operotica, the classically trained queer opera duo formed by Amber Reeves and Dani Croston, in collaboration with Dan Wye as Séayoncé, this is not your auntie’s polite night at the opera. Unless your auntie is far more interesting than mine.

Now then. What does happen when opera, kink and comedy get locked in a haunted parlour?

Apparently, everybody starts singing, blushing, dying, coming back again, and possibly having unfinished business of the emotional and earthly variety. I am trying to be delicate here, because Grace Hatchell may be a woman of the world, but even I had to put my glasses down and have a small sip of tea after reading this one.

Lovers in Every Lifetime invites audiences into Séayoncé’s parlour, where history’s most restless romantic souls appear to be having a terrible time staying dead and an even worse time keeping their hands to themselves. Their bodies may be cold, but their spirits are clearly still warm enough to fog up a mirror.

The show promises past lives, doomed lovers, fate-torn nuns, 18th-century ladies-in-waiting and, somehow, cats. I do not know what the cats have done, and frankly I am scared to ask. There is also mention of implied drug use by cats, which is the sort of Edinburgh Fringe detail that makes you stare into the middle distance and whisper, “Aye, fair enough.”

At the heart of the whole thing is Operotica, made up of classically trained opera singers Amber Reeves and Dani Croston. They trained at the Royal College of Music and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, so this is not a case of somebody simply putting on a corset and shouting near a piano. These are serious musical artists. They just happen to be taking that serious skill and throwing it into a world of kink, queer joy, burlesque, comedy and theatrical chaos.

And honestly? Good.

Opera has spent far too long looking like it belongs behind glass, guarded by somebody called Julian who sighs if you unwrap a mint too loudly. Operotica seem determined to drag it back into the room, loosen the collar, slap on a bit of lipstick and remind everyone that opera has always been dramatic, excessive, passionate and full of people making absolutely dreadful decisions because they fancy someone.

Which, when you think about it, is basically most of human history.

The show is described as a fusion of operatic musical artistry, vaudevillian theatrics and dark comedy. That sounds like the kind of thing Edinburgh Fringe does best: bold, strange, clever, funny, slightly indecent and impossible to explain to your mother without skipping at least three sentences.

It is also properly queer, and proudly so. Operotica’s work is rooted in reclaiming opera for new queer audiences, making it daring, exciting, representative and joyful. Their own statement speaks about the importance of queer stories onstage, particularly queer joy, love and sexuality represented without shame. That matters. Not in a worthy “please sit still and learn something” way, but in a full-bodied, glitter-in-the-carpet, music-in-your-bones kind of way.

Because representation does not always need to arrive wearing sensible shoes and carrying a clipboard. Sometimes it arrives in a haunted parlour, winks at you, hits a glorious note and makes half the audience wonder whether they should have worn something with more lace.

Operotica have already built a following across London’s theatre, burlesque and fetish scenes, with sold-out work including Operotica: Stabat Mater and Lonely Hearts Club. Their Stabat Mater video was selected for the Barbican’s Dirty Weekend exhibition, and they have performed at places including Mighty Hoopla, Torture Garden, Bishopsgate Institute, Antichrist, Wilderness Festival and The Groucho Club.

So Lovers in Every Lifetime arriving at the Fringe feels less like a cautious first step and more like a full dramatic entrance through a velvet curtain. Possibly with smoke. Possibly with a ghost. Definitely with somebody in the room who knows exactly what they are doing.

And then there is Dan Wye as Séayoncé, which is already a sentence worth the ticket price. Séayoncé is one of those Fringe names that tells you instantly you are either in safe hands or absolutely no hands at all, and both options sound thrilling.

The production runs for 60 minutes, which feels about right. Long enough to be swept into the haunted world of doomed lovers and operatic longing, short enough that nobody has to ask whether they are still alive by the end of it. Though with this show, that may be a genuine plot point.

There is an 18+ note, with nudity, scenes of a sexual nature, strong language and the aforementioned cat-related mischief. So, maybe do not bring your shy cousin who still says “bottom” in a whisper. Or do. I am not in charge of your family dynamics.

What I do love is that this sounds like a show with a genuine mission underneath all the theatrical wickedness. It is not just opera with a naughty hat on. It is asking who opera is for, who gets to feel welcome in it, and what happens when old forms are cracked open by performers with something new, queer, funny and fearless to say.

So, what happens when opera, kink and comedy get locked in a haunted parlour?

My guess is: the ghosts get flirty, the music gets gorgeous, the audience gets surprised, and I get caught blushing into my notebook like a Victorian maiden who has just seen an ankle.

Edinburgh Fringe, love, you do test me.

Operotica: Lovers in Every Lifetime plays Underbelly Bristo Square, Dairy Room, from 5 to 30 August 2026, excluding 12, 17 and 24 August, at 19:45.

Operotica: Lovers in Every Lifetime | Edinburgh Festival Fringe