 Expressing gay and queer desire in contemporary opera: the case of Elia (2004) by Silvio Palmieri 
With his chamber opera Elia (2004), composer Silvio Palmieri (1957-2018) is a pioneer in the representation of homosexuality on the operatic stage: for the first time in a québécois opera, gay characters express their condition and desire. In a context where the representation of queer realities within the operatic genre is increasingly common and explicit, this analysis examines the creative strategies that allow Palmieri to express a homosexual desire in his work, highlighting the dramatic and musical choices that contribute to the embodiment of this notion of desire and, more broadly, the queer attributes of this artistic proposal.