An Unlikely Diva Mixes Musical Genres and Genders

The Viper Room at midnight seems an unlikely place to hear Verdi’s “Sempre Libera,” from the opera “La Traviata,” sung by a bejeweled grande dame draped in green satin.

Unless, perhaps, the diva is a 200-plus-pound man in drag, replete with satin cape and Hello Kitty purse, providing a brief but welcome pause from rock music so loud that even some waitresses at the popular nightspot wear earplugs while lugging beer.

It’s not the Met, but what’s a falsetto singer who loves bel canto opera to do? Sing, and sing anywhere he can get a venue, even if it does mean mixing musical genres and exposing himself to a bit of ridicule.

That’s exactly the fix that “Dainty” Adore O’Hara has been in for some time now. Adore (which has the distinction of being both his real name and his stage moniker) has been performing operatic standards as an opener for heavy metal and punk bands for the better part of a decade, drawing bravos--and the occasional beer bottle--from crowds more accustomed to lyrics from the Sex Pistols than from Strauss.

His ultimate goal: to sing in musical films, if and when another one is ever made. And, for a wanna-be star like Adore, the struggle to find success is only made more tenuous by a painfully obvious lack of demand for his kind of talent.

“I am a fantasy artist. That’s what carries me through,” sighs the heavyset man with wavy blond hair. In his daily street wear of shorts, T-shirt and tennis shoes, he looks more like a construction worker than a Carmen.

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The 40-year-old Adore has become something of a fixture on the Los Angeles night scene, peddling flyers for his shows at art galleries and parties filled with artists, hoping someone, anyone, with some pull at the trendy gatherings will take notice and put him on the road to stardom.

“There is no one like Adore,” said a patron at an art gallery opening who had just been “Adored” with a postcard-sized announcement of his Memorial Day weekend performance. (On the program: selections from “Porgy and Bess.”)

In the beginning, opera was the furthest thing from Adore’s mind. The son of a crane operator and a Safeway cashier in San Francisco, he grew up performing in local shows and eventually studied acting in college and in summer stock.

After moving to New York, Adore landed a job in a traveling production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

But after living and working with the same people across the country, he decided to go solo.

Armed with his love of opera and the drama surrounding it, Adore purchased some opera anthologies and studied vocal powerhouses like Dames Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland. After he had performed some standards around New York City, bar and cabaret audiences seemed receptive--so much so that some folks even started giving him ball gowns to wear.

However, for a male who sings female parts, the chance to perform in legitimate, mainstream opera did not exist. Adore continued to sing wherever he could get a gig that put some money in his pocket and hair spray in his purse. Surprisingly, it was as an opening act for punk and heavy metal bands. A male cross-dressing opera lover who performs in punk rock venues was born.

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He got his start in New York. But California was home, and Los Angeles--the Capital of Cool--seems the right place to be, at least for the moment, Adore says, pointing out some of the benefits: warm weather and his room and kitchenette in a residential hotel near Melrose (partly funded by a small inheritance).

Although his initial performances were sometimes less than well received--at times Los Angeles audiences threw a variety of produce--it was at least an audience.

“Going out and singing Puccini and Verdi in the middle of punk and new wave shows . . . it thrilled me somehow,” says Adore, well aware that his appeal lies in the fact that he’s often hired to open for bands as “stooge,” a warm-up act to make the main event look even better.

But there are small perks to being a crossover. “I love rock ‘n’ roll, and there’s not much partying when you go to an opera,” he notes.

If his recent performance at the infamous Viper Room is any indication, appreciation of classical opera within a world of hip club-goers may not be an impossible dream. “Anything that is genuine and inspired touches people, whether it be opera or trailer park music--as long as it is genuine. Dainty is genuine,” says Sal Jenco, general manager of the Viper Room.

When Adore stepped on stage for his performance at the noisy club, the crowd fell silent. The music began and so did Adore, belting out a soulful rendition of “Sempre Libera” while Jenco stood to the side of the stage, waving a cigarette lighter. As the music became faster, one audience member clapped and the applause infectiously climaxed into whoops and hollers of approval throughout the venue.

As he sang, a hip-looking woman replete with feather boa and pierced body parts entered the bar, surprised and seemingly confused by the music. “Ohmigod, is this opera? This is opera. Wow, I like this!”