Terence Blanchard: Fire Shut Up In My Bones
The Met's new production
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Performers:
Destiny/Loneliness/Greta: Angel Blue
Billie: Latonia Moore
Charles: Will Liverman
Featuring:
Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Creators:
Choreographer: Camille A. Brown
Set designer: Allen Moyer
Costume designer: Paul Tazewell
Lighting designer: Christopher Akerlind
Projections: Greg Emetaz
Director: James Robinson, Camille A. Brown
Historically significant: this production deserves that designation even in advance, since Grammy Award-winning jazz musician Terence Blanchard's work will be the first opera created by an African-American composer to ever be staged at the Met. This work to be conducted by the institution's music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, is based on a memoir by the noted New York Times journalist Charles M. Blow and will be staged by two directors: James Robinson and Camille A. Brown, whose collective talent was made evident in their Porgy and Bess, the high point of the 2019/20 season.
Originally, it was an autobiographical memoir full of sensitive, difficult and painful subjects, as the story of the well-known political columnist Blow's childhood and young adulthood included a fair amount of poverty and discrimination, as well as sexual abuse and the problems of identity suffered by Black men. This 2014 memoir later inspired the imaginations of the deservedly celebrated jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard and his librettist, a fellow African American, the film director Kasi Lemmons: their joint operatic effort received its world première in St Louis in 2019. Enthusiastically hailed then for its daringness just as much for its powerful and impactful style of expression, the work has now made it to the Met at lightning speed, making it the first opera by a Black composer to be presented there in the entire 140 years of its history. The starring role will go to the highly talented young baritone Will Liverman, a familiar face from the world broadcast of the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten, who will be joined by two marvels from the aforementioned - and Grammy Award-winning - production of Porgy and Bess: Angel Blue and Latonia Moore.
The 'Metropolitan Opera Live in HD' transmissions have been made possible through the cooperation of our partner, Cikánek Management.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
