![]() ![]() You know what I mean? That's the thing that's really pushing or driving the work that's being done."įire Shut Up in My Bones features Will Liverman (left) as Charles, Angel Blue (center) as Destiny, Walter Russell III (second from right) as Char'es-Baby and Chris Kenney (far right) as Chester.įire Shut Up in My Bones was adopted from an affecting memoir by Charles M. "They all see themselves in these characters. "And here's the thing that I think makes the most powerful statement," Blanchard added. Brown, but also librettist Kasi Lemmons and the rest of his creative team - including the all-Black cast. "One of the beautiful things about this for me is that it doesn't belong to me," he said, referring not only to co-directors James Robinson and Camille A. In a recent conversation for WBGO Members during a break in rehearsals at The Met, he emphasized the communal nature of this production. Part of that rightness stems from Blanchard's air of humility, and the inclination to see himself as part of a continuum. He isn't the obvious choice to break The Met's 138-year streak of operas by white composers, but as Monday's triumphant performance showed, he was the right one. And in Fire, he found a subject, a setting and a region of inquiry that could fully engage his capacious musical imagination. Opera is a recent area of endeavor for him, but also the continuation of a musical influence he traces to his father, a devoted amateur singer. Music Terence Blanchard Makes History At The Metropolitan Operaīlanchard, 59, may be best known as a multiple Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter and bandleader - his latest album, Absence, was released just a month ago - but he has carved out no less distinguished a career in film music, notably through a longstanding association with Spike Lee. Peter Gelb, general manager of The Met, has acknowledged that the Black Lives Matter movement, which intensified a conversation around representation last year, informed his decision to fast-track and prioritize this piece for the current season. But the piece had not been planned as a season opener, let alone the first work to be presented after a long pandemic closure. Louis (which had also presented Blanchard's first opera, Champion). The Met commissioned Fire in 2019, following its well-received premiere at Opera Theatre of St. And what was perhaps most remarkable about the performance was the clear, untroubled confidence with which Blanchard and his collaborators carried the weight of expectations. The audience and the company basked together in this breakthrough during a stirring, momentous premiere at The Met on Monday night. That crucial relationship, between individual and collective, forms an irresistible meta-narrative for Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which has already made history as the first work by a Black composer to be presented by The Metropolitan Opera. ![]() The struggle is singular and interior, but it unfolds in grand scale against a hum of community, family and society. That weight, shouldered by the opera's central character, stems from his sexual and emotional abuse as a child, and the resulting pain and alienation of his young adulthood. Blow, is the first opera by a Black composer presented by the Metropolitan Opera in the New York institution's 138-year existence.Īgain and again in Fire Shut Up in My Bones, the magnetically powerful new opera by Terence Blanchard, the focus returns to the torturous weight of a burden carried alone. Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on a memoir by Charles M. ![]()
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