When Lyric Opera of Chicago presented the 2022 regional premiere of Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” an adaptation based on the best-selling memoir of New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, it immediately reinforced the jazz great’s fast-growing standing as an important operatic force.
It was little surprise, then, that the company, in what was a very quick pivot in the usually slow-moving operatic world, has offered a follow-up: Blanchard’s first opera, “Champion,” which the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis debuted in 2013. The co-production with New York’s Metropolitan Opera opened Saturday and runs through Feb. 11.
Often moving and ultimately redemptive, “Champion” explores fleeting fame, inner demons and unrelenting guilt. It is a tough, raw story that pulls no punches with its use of the f-word and other adult language not normally heard in operas.
A kind of operatic version of a biopic, as “Fire” is, this story is based on the life of Emile Griffith (1938-2013), a boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who won world titles in three weight divisions and is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Griffith’s most famous or infamous title bout came in 1962 when he knocked out Benny “Kid” Paret, who never recovered consciousness and died 10 days later. During a weigh-in for the fight, Paret touched Griffith on the buttocks and taunted him with anti-gay slurs.
That harrowing bout, which culminates Act 1, is the dramatic focal point of this opera along with the bisexual boxer’s struggles with male identity in the macho world of boxing. “What makes a man a man?” he asks in a probing aria.
Griffith later suffered from “boxer’s dementia,” and the opera takes place in the early 2000s, with the aging boxer looking back and reliving highlights of his life as he prepares to meet Paret’s son, Benny Paret Jr.
There is much to like about this opera, especially Blanchard’s highly effective score, but the libretto by actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Michael Cristofer is arguably not as well-integrated or well-constructed dramatically as that in “Fire.”
Some of the story’s exposition in Act 1 seems labored and overdone, while the exploration of Griffith’s gay identity, essentially two quick bar scenes, comes off as superficial, and the scene in which he meets Sadie Donastorg (soprano Meroë Khalia Adeeb) and decides to marry her is bafflingly fast and shallow.
What does work well is the creative interplay between the “old” and “young” versions of Griffith (really two voices in the aging fighter’s mind) who are seen often together onstage, and the use of an old-fashioned boxing ring announcer (the wonderful Chicago actor Larry Yando) as a kind of narrator with sometimes comic-tinged patter.
James Robinson, who also directed “Fire,” is back for “Champion” with his frequent collaborator, set designer Allen Moyer, and they have sculpted a visually stunning, dramatically compelling staging. Physical sets, especially the very realistic boxing ring and Griffith’s spartan, old-age apartment (often elevated to look down on the action), are smartly offset and complemented with projections on two vertical screens on each side of the stage and intermittent ones across the top. (Surtitles are shifted to the sides of the stage to accommodate the stacked scenery.)
Designer Greg Emetaz’s projections include vintage film footage, images of period fight posters and newspaper clippings as well as videos of the singers portraying Griffith and Paret in the boxing ring slickly coordinated with slow-motion, stylized real-time action.
Blanchard is an operatic natural. Much as he did in “Fire,” he has steered clear of anything particularly avant-garde, opting instead for a plush, enveloping sound with only the hint of dissonances here and there.
And as in “Fire,” his great innovation is inserting a wonderfully free-flowing, intoxicating jazz quartet within the pit orchestra of more than 50 players, with this foursome functioning much, as noted in that previous opera, like the continuo in baroque repertoire.Deserving particular note is the return of pianist Stu Mindeman, with his evocative, mood-setting playing.
Helming his first contemporary opera as Lyric’s music director, Enrique Mazzola seems right at home in this work, ably adapting to Blanchard’s jazz-classical fusion style and maximizing the score’s emotional power.
Lyric has assembled a strong cast for this production, many of whom are veterans of Lyric’s presentation of “Fire,” starting with baritone Reginald Smith Jr., who brings a gripping complexity to his portrayal of the old Griffith. With his big, reverberant voice, he compellingly conveys both the aging character’s fragility and time-worn strength.
Looking every bit the part with his chiseled upper body, baritone Justin Austin strongly anchors the production as the young Griffith, vividly communicating both the swaggering confidence and deep-seeded doubts of this character.
Considering he was a last-minute replacement announced from the stage, baritone Sankara Harouna is nothing short of spectacular as Paret and his son. Also deserving note is Naya Rosalie James, who turns in one of the most poignant arias of the production as the child version of Griffith with her admirable poise and spot-on intonation.
As the production comes to an end, old Griffith meets with Paret’s son and pleads for forgiveness for the death of his father. But more important, in dialogue between the old and young Griffith, the tormented boxer is finally able to forgive himself.
