Jazz musician and two-time Academy Award nominee Terence Blanchard is making history at the Metropolitan Opera, again.
Blanchard became the first Black composer ever to have a work performed by the Met Opera last season when the company presented his second opera, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” That production, a critical and popular success, is returning for an encore run in the 2023-24 season – an unusually swift return for a contemporary creation.
Now, Blanchard’s first opera is set to appear at the Met, in the context of a historic yearlong collaboration among multiple Lincoln Center resident organizations. “Champion: An Opera in Jazz,” which had its world premiere at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2013, opens on Monday. The presentation is part of “See Me As I Am: Terence Blanchard,” which itself constitutes a landmark: the first time a single artist’s work has been explored throughout Lincoln Center, including events at the New York Philharmonic, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Film at Lincoln Center and elsewhere.
Terrence Blanchard (center) and Yannick Nézet-Séguin address the Met Orchestra during a rehearsal of "Champion."
“Champion: An Opera in Jazz” tells the true story of welterweight boxing champion Emile Griffith and his bouts with Cuban fighter Benny “The Kid” Paret. When Griffith arrived in New York City in 1962 for the last of three fights between the two men, both attended a press conference. Looking to gain a psychological advantage, Paret used a homophobic slur, outing Griffith as gay.
The effect on Griffith was immense: He pummeled Paret in the ring, punching him 17 times in less than 7 seconds. Afterward, Paret fell into a coma and died. For the rest of his life, Griffith was haunted by both Paret’s death and the public outing of his sexual identity.
The tragic and redemptive qualities of the boxer’s story were critical to Blanchard when considering an operatic treatment. Griffith “had to forgive himself for what he did,” Blanchard said. “He was doing his job, you know.”
Blanchard describes a meeting, years later, between the veteran boxer and Paret’s family. “He’s dealing with dementia now, he’s forgetting things, can’t remember everything,” he said. “But then at the meeting, Benny Paret Jr. tells him, we just want you to know that we don’t harbor any ill will toward you. And at that moment, Emil broke down, and you can see that he had been carrying the weight of his death on his shoulders for 30 years.”
What Griffith said next became a catalyst for Blanchard’s operatic conception: “I killed a man, and the world forgave me, but I loved a man, and the world wants to kill me.”
The contemporary relevance of that statement was clear to the composer. “When I won my first award, I looked to my wife and gave her a hug and a kiss, and proceeded to go up onstage to celebrate that moment,” Blanchard said. “And to think that he became welterweight champion of the world, and couldn’t celebrate with somebody he loved openly – it hurts.”
"To think that he became welterweight champion of the world, and couldn’t celebrate with somebody he loved openly – it hurts," Terence Blanchard says of Emile Griffith.
Addressing the second part of the opera’s title, “Champion: An Opera in Jazz,” Blanchard asserts that the work is not “a jazz opera.” Many moments feature just orchestra and voice. But in others, he tapped into his deep knowledge of jazz tradition and technique.
“What I’m trying to do is what any great composer in history has done,” he said, “which is to take our folklore that exists in our country and use all the elements that I can that are appropriate to telling a story.” Just as he used aspects of gospel music in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” his score for “Champion” touches on a range of jazz and blues styles.
Blanchard does see affinities between jazz and boxing. The “six major punches” used by prizefighters, he says, are akin to musical scales. Then there’s the improvisational aspect: “It’s all happening with split-second timing,” he said. “You don’t have time to sit down and really calculate what you need to do – it happens in the blink of an eye.
“So it’s very much like being on the bandstand with some great musicians,” he added, “except nobody’s getting hit in the face.”
But ultimately, it’s not the musical innovation that excites Blanchard the most about “Champion.” Rather, it’s the tragic life of Emile Griffith, and the message of redemption Blanchard sees in it, that makes the story compelling – and contemporary.
“Champion: An Opera in Jazz” runs April 10 through May 13 at the Metropolitan Opera House.
