She burned down convents, fought in duels, and won the hearts of men and women everywhere both on and off the stage: Julie d'Aubigny lived a life that seemed impossible. An openly queer, cross-dressing, rapier-wielding opera star in the 17th century, she has become the subject of a thousand often contradictory stories of daring and adventure. In fiction and in fact, it's difficult to pin Julie down. Historical sources are sparse and often disparate. Despite this, there is a fervour about her – a figure almost mythological, whose presence in popular queer history eclipses her limited record. This opera explores the mythologisation and multiplicity of stories about Julie, the magnetism that she still exerts and the hearts that she's still stealing. On the stage, multiple singers portray Julie, sometimes individually, sometimes together, and sometimes not at all, and through this interweaving of sometimes contradictory visions of Julie's life we see her not as a singular figure but as a shapeshifting centrepoint for a multitude of ideas about queerness and living a life defiant of the structures around us. She feels anachronistic, reaching out to the future; her presence dares us all to live as audaciously as her, and, in whatever way we can, to change the world.

Co-created by composer Meta Cohen, librettist Evan Bryson and director/dramaturg Alyson Campbell, Kiss My Sword will be premiered first as a song cycle in 2025 (14 May, fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival, Naarm/Melbourne, Australia) and a fully-realised opera in 2026.