Daniela Vega(I)

Became the first openly transgender person to ever present at the Oscars when she introduced Sufjan Stevens's performance of "Mystery of Love" from Chiamami col tuo nome (2017) (Dolby Theatre Los Angeles / 4 March 2018).

[on her opera singing in Una donna fantastica (2017)]: It's my real voice in the film. My grandmother, my father's mother, was blind. She taught me to listen to music, to the television, to the birds and the trees and the sound of water. She taught me to listen even though I could see. I find a lot of poetry in that, and it ended with me opening my ears to both sound and to music but also recognizing the most important thing to hear is silence. Like that song, "Enjoy the Silence"-that made real sense to me when I was growing up. I seek out hard things. I tried to imitate other singers. It was a self-discovery for me to move from imitating others to me growing to sing in my own voice. The opera was difficult and it felt like a personal conquest.