San Cha releases new music and unveils new opera, ‘Inebria Me’

San Cha has canceled the world premiere of her original opera “Asuncion,” which was set to premiere at the Long Beach Opera House earlier this month, and is now working on a new version set to premiere in New York in 2025. 

“There’s not a lot I can say,” said San Cha in an interview with CALÓ News. “I can say that I am making a new opera and I am making it the way that I want and that feels authentic to me, called ‘Inebria Me.’”

“Inebria Me” is currently in production with funding from the National Performance Network (NPN). The network announced the awards for the Documentation and Storytelling Fund, in support of artists’ career advancement last month, awarding San Cha the financial support to bring her latest vision to life and to the stage. 

“[NPN] is this national company that has been advocating for me and really helping me see a future,” said San Cha. “Everyone really signed up for what I presented.”

She says that she feels like NPN has really given her the opportunity to have creative freedom to make the production as true to her vision as possible. She believes that the only way she would be willing to bring this vision to life is if there wasn’t anyone but her making the decisions.  

“‘Inebria Me’ has been ten years in the making, and I think that allowing it to come to life was taking a really big chance,” said San Cha. “It takes so much to pull off something I’ve never personally seen done before. I could just make music and perform with a band, but here I am spending all my energy and running through all my resources making something happen that really only exists in my imagination.”

The opera’s central theme is based on an album she released in 2019. 

“It’s based off of ‘La Luz De La Esperanza,’and I’m basically going to change the structure [of the opera], and collaborate on new songs,” said San Cha.  

“Inebria Me” is a Latin term for “intoxicate me,” in the Anima Christi prayer to Jesus. It is used commonly in the holy sacrament for the Catholic Church. 

“One of the focal songs from ‘La Luz De La Esperanza’ is ‘Alimentate En Mi,’ which is basically about finding sustenance through someone else’s light,” said San Cha. “So I wanted to make that the premise of this new opera. It’s an opportunity to elaborate on the story and libretto, and really take control.”

The Long Beach Opera was to host the world premiere, but recently issued a notice to audiences that “Asuncíon” would be canceled “after careful consideration, with LBO deeply respecting the artists involved and their creative process,” according to their website. 

San Cha self-released “La Luz De La Esperanza”in 2019, re-imagining traditional rancheras with a telenovela-aesthetic production style and hymns that are reminiscent of her Catholic upbringing. The 13 songs that make up the album span from the act of sinning and repenting, to yearning and belting out queer love lyrics. 

“[The opera] is like what I imagined what the Bible is like. Maybe based on an emotional story that really happened and that was turned into this epic journey,” said San Cha. “Because it is based on my journey coming into queerness and that process of falling in love with my friends and leaving behind this straight life.” 

San Cha is working on her new opera alongside Darian Donovan Thomas, a classical composer who will be her violinist for the production. Thomas is a multi-instrumentalist and interdisciplinary artist from San Antonio, Texas. He is focused on deconstructing the barriers that make art inaccessible for some, and toward building more intersectional and all-inclusive access to all artistic genres. 

“It’s exciting to mix his classical view on things with my kind of pop and underground perspective,” said San Cha. 

Telenovelas have been around since the early 1950s, which first started as 15-minute segments on the radio and then broadcast on TV, eventually gaining hour-long segments. For the last 70 years, novelas have been traditionally straight, based on themes of love, passion, betrayal, respect, family money and many others. 

San Cha says she draws inspiration from the novelas she grew up watching that she says enforced the gender roles her parents wanted her to fit into. 

“My parents were super, super religious and I did all of my sacraments and to this day my parents still pray the rosary everyday.”

San Cha says her mother saw her most recent music video for one of her latest releases “Gay,” where she is seen sort of sexually embracing a Virgen de Guadalupe statue. She says her mother said something to her along the lines of: ‘No me gusta que andes con la virgen, es como si te estuvieras burlando.’ 

That was sort of the point, she said. 

In an era of diss tracks, San Cha unveiled the new song in June, featuring a more gothic sound and angsty lyrics.

That sound is not entirely a new concept for San Cha, but it is the first time she makes an almost-explicit track in what some of her fans have described as the “gay IV drip they needed for their limp wrists.” 

San Cha created “Gay” with Jeppe Breum and Tyler Holmes, filmed in a backyard improv moment. 

She also released more new music on July 13, the date that was set for the premiere of “Asuncion” at the LBOH. The release party was dubbed the “Ascension of San Cha.” 

San Cha will be playing a free concert this upcoming weekend at Golden Gate Park and her new cassette release "Processions" is available exclusively through Ballroom.