In the final act of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”, which opened the Metropolitan Opera’s new season on September 27th, a college fraternity performs a percussive and vivacious step dance (pictured). Terence Blanchard, the composer, has said that some early collaborators “didn’t understand the significance” of the dance and suggested cutting the scene. But when it was performed in New York, the audience did recognise its power and responded with loud cheers to this communal African-American tradition. The piece represents a welcome move towards more inclusivity in opera: “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is the first work by a black composer staged at the Met since it opened in 1883.
It is the second opera by Mr Blanchard, a Grammy-award-winning jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer who has written moody, mournfully lyrical soundtracks for many of Spike Lee’s films. The elegant libretto was written by Kasi Lemmons, an actress and film-maker, and adapted from Charles Blow’s memoir of the same name published in 2014. Mr Blow, a journalist, told of his youth in a segregated town in rural Louisiana, molestation by a cousin and an uncle, and lust for revenge as an adult. With a title from the Book of Jeremiah, the story is a lamentation of racism, violence and the abuse of power.
These are themes that the opera world has been trying to address both within its own ranks and on stage in recent years. The Met initially scheduled “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” for the autumn of 2023 but brought it forward after the nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations that took place in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. In addition to the opening night simulcast that has been shown in Times Square since 2006, there was a broadcast at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem.
Mr Blanchard often explores social justice in his work. His first opera, “Champion” (which had its premiere at the forward-thinking Opera Theatre of St Louis in 2013), told the story of the closeted bisexual boxer Emile Griffith. “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” (which also had its premiere at the Opera Theatre, in 2019) is musically and dramatically a much stronger work, vividly staged at the Met by Camille Brown—the first black artist to direct and choreograph a main stage production at the house—and James Robinson. Mr Blanchard, who was born in New Orleans, has attributed the melodic qualities of his music to his childhood exposure to opera by his father, an amateur baritone. Though this “opera in jazz”, as Mr Blanchard has described his work, has unconventional elements, it is in other ways traditional grand opera, with passionate arias and vibrant choral scenes.
On stage, the character of Charles is portrayed as both an adult (sung here by the superb baritone Will Liverman) and as a seven-year-old (Walter Russell III). The cast, particularly Latonia Moore in a powerful performance as Billie, Charles’s hardworking mother, sang beautifully. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, conducted a performance that highlighted the subtleties of Mr Blanchard’s harmonically rich score, with its echoes of gospel, folk and blues. There is a jazz quartet embedded in the orchestra.
Mr Blanchard recently told the New York Times that he doesn’t want to be a “token”, but instead aims to be “a turnkey”. He is conscious of gifted predecessors rudely rebuffed by the Met, such as William Grant Still, a composer of almost 200 works and the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra. The Met is conscious of this history, too: it will present works by other black composers in upcoming seasons, including Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X”.
The arc of Mr Blow’s memoir bends towards hope and redemption. It was also an optimistic evening at the Met, which, with 3,800 seats, is the world’s largest opera house. It has been a rough 18 months for the institution, which shut down in March 2020 because of covid, cancelled its 2020-21 season, lost some $150m in revenue, and barely resolved labour disputes in time for opening night. There are a worrying number of unsold seats for upcoming operas this season. But at the opening performance of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”, at least, a diverse and glamorous audience seemed thrilled to be a part of an event that heralded a new era. ■
“Fire Shut Up in My Bones” continues at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, until October 23rd
"Shut" - Google News
September 29, 2021 at 09:10PM
https://ift.tt/3ijSKhn
“Fire Shut Up in My Bones” heralds a new era for the Met - The Economist
"Shut" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3d35Me0
https://ift.tt/2WkO13c
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "“Fire Shut Up in My Bones” heralds a new era for the Met - The Economist"
Post a Comment