Terence Blanchard's Met Opera Debut Is A Singular Achievement And A Shared Success
September 28, 20215:10 PM ET
Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on a memoir by Charles M. Blow, is the first opera by a Black composer presented by the Metropolitan Opera in the New York institution's 138-year existence.
Again 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. 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. The struggle is singular and interior, but it unfolds in grand scale against a hum of community, family and society.
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 audience and the company basked together in this breakthrough during a stirring, momentous premiere at The Met on Monday night. 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 Met commissioned Fire in 2019, following its well-received premiere at Opera Theatre of St. Louis (which had also presented Blanchard's first opera, Champion). But the piece had not been planned as a season opener, let alone the first work to be presented after a long pandemic closure. 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.
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041148196/terence-blanchards-met-opera-debut-is-a-singular-achievement-and-a-shared-succes
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