NEW YORK, Sept. 28 (US): “We bend, we don’t break. We swing!” chorus sings in Chapter Two of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” by Terence Blanchard.
That’s how much the audience of about 4,000 people at the Metropolitan Opera felt when they watched the historic Monday night performance, the first home theater act since March 2020 and the first by a black composer in the long history of a company launched in 1883.
With many women wearing evening dresses and jewelry and a large percentage of men wearing black tie and even a few wearing white tie and tails and top hats, people greeted each other to celebrate their return to Lincoln Center after an absence they never imagined. AP reports.
After a historic gap of 566 days, the country’s largest performing arts organization has resumed presentations at the start of the season set to run through June 11. Video screens in Times Square and Harlem Park by Marcus Garvey.
There was a thunderous applause from the orchestra at first, even before “The Star-Spangled Banner” was sung with many glistening high notes. And when it was over after more than three hours, about nine more minutes of applause for the cast, music composer, songwriter Cassie Lemons, the production team, and finally Charles M. the opera.
The evening was a triumph for Blanchard, the 59-year-old trumpeter and jazz composer who is as native to Louisiana as Blue. A haunting tale of child sexual abuse in isolated northern Louisiana in the 1970s beautifully composed of nuances of shade and color.
“Fire” premiered in 2019 at the St. Louis Opera Theater and was brought to the Met as part of a co-production that will move to Chicago’s Lyric Opera in March and Los Angeles Opera in a later season. (The October 23 of The Met, the last of eight shows, will be broadcast to cinemas around the world.)
This was Blanchard’s second opera after “The Champion” of 2013, about boxer Emile Griffith, the music being the hottest and moving in the orchestral parts. Sometimes phonetics can sound more conservative, especially in the first trimester. He lifts the energy at the beginning of Chapter Two Baptist Church with the song “Wash Me Clean” and reminds him of the storm of his youth.
There is a reference in the text to what appears to be Wagner’s “Liebesnacht” from “Tristan und Isolde,” a duet between Charles and his girlfriend Greta proclaiming “I hated the night. The night was my archenemy.” Continuing the quest for gender identity, a theme from Blow’s book, Charles sings near the end “I am what I am,” returning to “La Cage aux Folles,” the 1984 Tony Award winner by Jerry Hermann and Harvey Feurstein.
The largely descriptive book Blanchard and Lemmons summarizes key moments in Blow’s memoirs: his youngest of five children’s upbringing, abuse by Chester’s cousin, his baptism, the brutal violence of the Grambling fraternity and the search for love with first Evelyn and later Greta. The biggest response from the audience was to the dancer brothers who stopped the show.
Blanchard and Lemons stir up the plot by having adult Charles (imposing baritone Will Liverman) sing along with young Charles, known as Charice Baby. Walter Russell III, the 13-year-old who played young Charles, earned his singles biggest cheer with a stellar performance that was charming, insightful, and moving.
The all-black ensemble cast included soprano Latonia Moore as Charles’ mother Bailey, and soprano Angel Blue in the beloved triple roles of Destiny and Lonely, Greta and baritone Ryan Speedo-Green as the menacing Uncle Paul.
Music director Yannick Nesit Seguin, in a color shirt markedly different from that of his predecessor James Levine, and choir master Donald Palumbo gave a lively performance. Nézet-Séguin, who shows a commitment to contemporary work rarely seen at the Met, is leading Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice” in November.
Directors James Robinson and Camille A. Brown (she was also the choreographer) blocked a superb production with sets by Allen Moyer dominated by two big squares that were carried on and off the stage.
RAE