When opera singer Maria Seiren opens her mouth, you’re never sure which voice you will hear. One moment she is singing an aria in a high, warbling soprano. The next, she switches to a booming tenor, effortlessly leaping back and forth in a duet with herself.

The first-ever winner of talent show competition “Japan’s Got Talent” dazzles both with her ambivoce (Seiren’s term for dual male and female singing voice) and her elaborate costumes, including headdresses designed by Mieko Ueda. Even offstage she rocks a flamboyant floral blazer and elegant long dark hair when we meet on the ground floor of the offices of MondoParallelo, her own opera production company.

Seiren rejects rigid definitions and embraces experimentation. She masterfully mixes styles such as classical opera and traditional noh theater, high art and entertainment, as she blends the masculine with the feminine — in spite of, or maybe precisely because, she has had difficulties with gender roles from a young age.