#FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES LYRIC OPERA MOVIE#

I know I’m not the first one to be qualified. I wasn’t feeling any of that, because being the first Black composer here is an honor with an asterisk. Are those things that add weight to your job? This production is the Met’s first in almost two years, and its first ever by a Black composer. So, we decided to have an overture to open it up. We couldn’t do that at the Met-he’d have to be Superman to run down that aisle and jump onto stage. Louis is that the Charles character would run on stage, out of breath, and suddenly, the music would start. We also added an overture at the beginning. For this performance, we fine-tuned a few things and added an aria, there were also little lines that were spoken before that were sung this time. When Kasi originally wrote the libretto, she wrote it like a film, where the scenes could go back and forth rapidly, and we had to structure some of that differently to make it flow for the theater. Ken Howard / Met Opera How did Fire change between St.

#FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES LYRIC OPERA MOVIE#

Will Liverman as Charles and Angel Blue as Greta in Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which will be broadcast in movie theaters around the world on October 23. There are slight differences in terms of the intent behind the music, but stylistically it all comes from the same place. With film, I’m not helping with dialogue at all, I’m supporting it more than anything. In opera, there’s room, but not as much, because there’s dialogue that must be delivered to help tell a story. With jazz, I have more of an opportunity to create on the fly. It’s all part of the same expression of what I love, but the different genres do stretch different muscles. Do you feel differently about working in different mediums? You just need to be confident enough in your skills to tell a story in a clear, concise fashion. I do it too I had generalizations in terms of my expectations about what the music should be, but like jazz, it can be whatever it wants. And that’s true for people and opera as well. My composition teacher told me, “Don’t write opera, tell a story.” It’s the same thing with jazz and people who aren’t fans, they generalize about it. That word carries a lot of history with it and can be daunting or overwhelming if you let it. You can tell very vivid stories in opera, but the first thing you must do is get over the notion of writing an opera. Ken Howard / Met Opera Fire is your second opera, but you might have previously been better known for jazz and film scores. Latonia Moore as Billie, Walter Russell III as Char’es-Baby, and Will Liverman as Charles in Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

The Met commissioned me to write a third one the night of the premiere of this one. They commissioned me for the second opera the night of the premiere of the first one I’ve got to stop doing premieres because every time I do, I get another commitment. It was my second opera for the Opera Theatre of St. There wasn’t a lot of going back and forth about should we or shouldn’t we. Louis to meet Kasi, who we had hired to write the libretto we knew if anyone could do it, it would be her, she’s brilliant and we’ve worked together on several films. We all decided to call Charles and once we agreed, we brought him to St. My manager, who’s also my wife, read Charles’s book and said, “I think this would be a good story.” She had me read it and agreed, and at the same time she sent it to Jim Robinson at the Opera Theatre of St. Baritone Will Liverman gives a breakout performance as Charles, starring alongside soprano Latonia Moore as his mother, Billie soprano Angel Blue, who portrays the forces of Destiny and Loneliness, as well as Charles’s college sweetheart, Greta and rising young star Walter Russell III as Charles’s childhood self, Char’es-Baby.Ĭontent Advisory: Fire Shut Up in My Bones addresses adult themes and contains adult language.How did you begin adapting Charles Blow’s memoir into an opera? What made it feel like the right medium?

Brown, who also created the staging’s vivid choreography. In this performance, recorded as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts an electrifying production co-directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Blow’s harrowing memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is the second opera from six-time Grammy Award–winner Terence Blanchard and follows the young Charles as he navigates adolescence and struggles to overcome a life of trauma. Not only was it the return of live opera following an extended closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also marked the first performance of a work by a Black composer to be presented by the Met. Opening Night of the Met’s 2021–22 season was a doubly historic event.

Fire shut up in my bones lyric opera