‘Turn the Fire In My Bones’ Review: A Black Composer at the Met,


Jazz trumpeter Blanchard, best known for her compositions for Spike Lee films, and writer, director and actress Kasi Lemmons, the first Black librarian of a piece performed by the Met with “Fire”, was greeted with enthusiastic applause at the end. Date. At a Met opening, it was refreshing to see them applauded by an audience of far more people of color than usual, along with an almost all Black cast, choir, and dance troupe.

“Fire,” Premiered at the St. Louis Opera Theater In 2019, it is based on a 2014 memory by New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow; This is an explanation of his turbulent upbringing as he faced emotional turmoil in rural Louisiana, seeking affection from his demanding mother, and trying to face the wounds of sexual abuse. Blow’s book recalls his previous life from an adult perspective, while at the same time recounting his experiences as if they were living in the moment. Blanchard and Lemmons use an operatic trick to present this layering.

As the opera opens, we see Charles (the muscular-voiced baritone Will Liverman in a groundbreaking performance), a college student speeding home, gun in hand, to avenge his abuse as a boy by his older cousin. In the next scene, his 7-year-old self, Char’es-Baby, is played by Walter Russell III, a lovable mob and sweet-toned boy soprano. The portrayal of a character by two singers at different stages of life goes way back in opera and works strongly here. During the long segments of Act I, Charles wanders around Char’es-Baby, giving warnings that the child cannot hear, and they sometimes sing the duo in winding lyric lines over soft harmonies.

Opera also creates a two-pronged female character named Destiny and Solitude to embody the qualities that haunted Charles. The use of soul-like characters is another familiar tool in opera, and here – with Angel Blue’s bright soprano voice and unforced charisma playing the dual role – it’s more impressive than the cliché it could easily be.

Blanchard skillfully blends the hints of jazz, blues, big band and gospel in his music, creating a compositional sound dominated by rich chromatic and modal harmonic writing, full of jagged rhythms and sharp dissonance. recently commented Interview with The Times On his approach to writing vowels: Says words over and over to learn the shape and flow of the text.

The resulting musical environment is clear and natural. Blanchard mixes spoken moments with vocal expressions that unfold in the jazz equivalent of Italian arioso. He has a penchant for softening those vocal lines with orchestral chords that embrace them – or he’ll often double down on voices or write counter melodies with extended lines for strings. (Howard Drossin is known for additional orchestrations.)

Blanchard uses this intense lyrical style so persistently that passages risk slipping into melodrama. This topic is on the Met in St. It’s more problematic than in Louis. In Missouri, the opera was presented in a 756-seat theater, roughly one-fifth of the Met. Understandably, the creative team chose to adapt the work to the broader space. Some scenes were extended; added dance sequences; The role of Charles’ mother Billie is significantly expanded here to create a true lead soprano piece, sung impressively by Latonia Moore.

These advanced arias and scenes sometimes took too long, although the opera still avoided looking extravagant. st. I miss the intimacy and directness of the Louis production—almost chamber orchestra clarity as the words jump off the stage.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, brought attendance and energy to the podium, revealing the music’s colors and character, nuances and brilliant shine. But while the strings of the orchestra gave their all to this lyricism, the sound was often too soft. If only Nézet-Séguin had encouraged more refinement and restraint.

Still, “Fire” remains a fresh, inspiring work. You believe these characters by watching scenes from their daily lives, such as when we see Billie and her colleagues plucking feathers on a table full of carcasses in a chicken factory; or when young Charles decides to get baptized in the church to get rid of demons in his sexual confusion. (After this, he is visited by Solitude, who promises to be his lifelong companion.)

st. Louis production, with director and choreographer Camille A. Brown joining the Met, making him the first Black artist to direct a Met production. Brown has created some stunning dance scenes, including a dream ballet where young Charles sees attractive, embracing men surrounding his bed and rises to join them, both horrified and enthralled. III. The act begins with a long tap-dancing scene that stops the show: Charles rushes Kappa Alpha Psi, a Black troupe, and 12 male dancers perform a frenetic but surprisingly laid-back dance performance that is grounded.

Blanchard was lucky to have Lemmons as a collaborator. His libretto is poetic, poignant, sometimes terribly funny, always strikingly effective. Many verses, precisely defined by Blanchard, will remain with me, as when old Charles sang Destiny repeating, “I was once a strange child of grace,” a “dangerous existence” for a man of his own race. From his “lawless town” where everyone carries a gun, he adds, “I carried shame on my waist in a holster.”

Allen Moyer’s spare set – a kind of rough-hewn wooden proscenium and several other moving elements – is visually enhanced by projections by Greg Emetaz. Paul Tazewell’s costumes were quite simple, but evoked changing eras and environments. The entire cast was excellent; bright-voiced tenor Chauncey Packer as Spinner, Billie’s flirtatious husband; serious bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as the gentle Uncle Paul, who attracts Billie and her sons; and husky baritone Chris Kenney in the challenging role of Chester, the older cousin who abuses Charles. The scene of abuse is even more powerful because it’s not explicitly staged: in close-up projections, Char’es-Baby’s painful face is shown, while we only see the cousins ​​standing still.

In the penultimate scene, Charles meets Greta, a beautiful woman with whom he instantly bonds; He calls it his “destiny”. (He is also played by Blue, Our Destiny and Our Loneliness.) Trade secrets, Charles admits to the abuse he suffered; Greta later admits to having a dedicated boyfriend. Crushed, Charles calls home and learns from his mother that Chester has stopped by, which goes back to the opera’s opening when we see Charles ready to kill.

But by the time he reaches his mother’s house, Chester is gone. The opera instead ends with a poignant scene with sad, soft music, when Charles, who Char’es-Baby looks after, returns to Billie and is finally able to accept his always-given motherly advice about not carrying emotional baggage in life: “Sometimes on the road must leave.”



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