''Champion'' is an
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
in two acts and ten scenes with music by
Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American trumpeter and composer. He started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed ...
and a libretto by
Michael Cristofer
Michael Cristofer (born January 22, 1945) is an American actor, playwright and filmmaker. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play for '' The Shadow Box'' in 1977. From 2015 to 2019, he played the role of Phillip ...
. Based on the life of African-American
welterweight
Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify th ...
boxer
Emile Griffith
Emile Alphonse Griffith (February 3, 1938 – July 23, 2013) was a professional boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who won world titles in three weight divisions. He held the world light middleweight, undisputed welterweight, and middleweight ...
,
this opera is a joint co-commission by
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) is an American summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. Typically four operas, all sung in English, are presented each season, which runs from late May to late June. Performances are accompanied by th ...
(OTSL) and Jazz St. Louis.
Background
''Champion'' developed out of conversations between OTSL and Jazz St. Louis, and the companies' shared desire to collaborate on a commission that would combine opera and
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
. Blanchard himself described the work, his first opera, with the term "opera in jazz" rather than a "jazz opera".
In 2011, the Whitaker Foundation of St. Louis provided the initial $200,000 leadership gift needed to fund the commissioning and development costs of the new work. In 2012, Opera Theatre received a $1M (USD) challenge grant from The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pitts ...
, which would underwrite a substantial portion of the production costs of ''Champion'', as well as Ricky Ian Gordon's opera ''27'' (premiered at OTSL in 2014) and a new production of Tobias Picker's ''Emmeline'' (presented in 2015). Additional support for ''Champion'' was provided by the Fred M. Saigh Endowment at Opera Theatre, the National Endowment for the Arts, OPERA America's ''Opera Fund'', Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Phoebe Dent Weil, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music.
Performance history
It received its premiere at the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts,
Webster University
Webster University is a private university with its main campus in Webster Groves, Missouri. It has multiple branch locations across the United States and countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa. It offers undergraduate and graduate program ...
, on 15 June 2013.
The opera received its second production, with a revised orchestration by Blanchard, by
Opera Parallèle in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, in collaboration with
SFJAZZ
The SFJAZZ Center is an all-ages music venue in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, California, that opened in January 2013. It is considered the "first free-standing building in America built for jazz performance and education." It is ...
, on February 21, 2016.
The third production of the opera was on March 5, 2017 by
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera (WNO) is an American opera company in Washington, D.C. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Perform ...
at the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...
.
A 2020 production scheduled at
Michigan Opera Theatre Detroit Opera is the principal opera company in Michigan, USA. The company is based in Detroit, where it performs in the Detroit Opera House. Prior to February 28, 2022, the company was named the Michigan Opera Theatre.
Each year it presents an op ...
was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Boston Lyric Opera
Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is an American opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1976. BLO is the largest and longest-lived opera company in New England. BLO employs nearly 350 artists and creative professionals annually—vocalist ...
presented their cancelled 2020 production in May 2022.
In December 2021, the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
announced that they would stage ''Champion'' in April 2023. Composer Blanchard and librettist Cristofer intend to make revisions for the production. The announcement came after the Metropolitan's successful production of Blanchard's second opera, ''
Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames are pr ...
''.
Roles
Synopsis
Act I
![Luis Rodrigo Griffith](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Luis_Rodrigo_Griffith.jpg)
Scene 1 begins in Emile Griffith's apartment in
Hempstead, Long Island
The Town of Hempstead (also known historically as South Hempstead) is the largest of the three Administrative divisions of New York#Town, towns in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County (alongside North Hempstead, New York, North Hempstead and Oys ...
, where he is struggling to dress himself. Suffering from
dementia
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
, he is confused and haunted by his past, which the opera presents in flashback. Luis, his adopted son and caretaker, reminds him to be ready for an important meeting with Benny Paret, Jr.
''Late 1950s'': Emile is a young man in St. Thomas, the US Virgin Islands. He wants to find his mother, Emelda, and make his fortune in America as a singer, a baseball player, and a hat designer. Emile moves to New York. When he finds his mother, she is confused, not sure which of her seven abandoned children he is, but overjoyed. Hoping to find work for Emile, she takes him to meet Howie Albert, a hat manufacturer. Howie sees an opportunity, in that Emile is physically like a boxer, not a hat-maker. Howie decides to train Emile for prizefighting. Giving up his other dreams, Emile quickly develops into a talented welterweight. Lonely and confused by his success, Emile finds his way to a gay bar in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, whose owner, Kathy Hagan, welcomes him to a frightening and also attractive world. Emile confides in Kathy, revealing some demons from his past. As a boy, his fundamentalist cousin Blanche forced him to hold cinderblocks above his head as punishment for 'having the devil inside him', which gave him his great physical strength.
''1962'': Emile meets
Benny Paret
Bernardo Paret (March 14, 1937 – April 3, 1962), known as Benny Paret or Benny "Kid" Paret, was a Cuban welterweight boxer who won the World Welterweight Championship twice in the early 1960s.
Paret's death occurred 10 days after injuries ...
at a weigh-in for their upcoming fight. Paret taunts Emile with the term 'maricón', a disparaging Spanish word for a homosexual. Alone with Howie, Emile tries to talk to him frankly about why this word hurts him so deeply, but for Howie this is something that no one in the fight business wants to talk about. Howie leaves him and Emile wonders what it means to be a man. Emile and Paret prepare for the big fight. Paret continues to taunt Emile, who ultimately delivers seventeen blows in less than seven seconds, which puts Paret into a coma.
Act II
Back in Emile's bedroom in the present, Emile is haunted by the ghost of Kid Paret who still questions his old opponent.
''Mid- to late 1960s'': Emile is enjoying a strong winning streak all over the world. Titles, trophies, and money roll in, but he remains disturbed by the death of Kid Paret. He tries living it up, and, denying his own identity, he takes a young bride, Sadie, although everyone, including his mother Emelda, who remembers her own childhood back in the Islands, warns him against it.
''Early 1970s'': After the wedding, Emile's luck has changed. He's now on a long losing streak of matches, and beginning to exhibit signs of "boxer's brain", or trauma-related dementia. Howie realizes that Emile's days are numbered and tries to console him. However, Emile rejects Howie, as well as his wife and his mother. Instead, he looks for comfort back at Kathy's bar. Outside in the street, a group of thugs taunt him and beat him violently, exacerbating his brain injuries.
Back in the present, Emile relives the nightmare of the attack. Luis tries to comfort him ("That was long ago"). In a New York City park, Emile asks for forgiveness from Benny Jr. Luis tells Benny that since that evening, Emile has struggled to find peace with what he's done and who he truly is. Back at home, the voices and memories subside.
Critical reception
Premiere
At its premiere, ''Champion'' received generally favourable critical reviews, with respect to the production, direction, and performances of the cast. Several critics noted the coincidence of the production of ''Champion'' with then-current events in the USA related to violence against gay people, the attention given to basketball player
Jason Collins
Jason Paul Collins (born December 2, 1978) is an American former professional basketball player who was a center for 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Stanford Cardinal, where he was ...
(the first openly gay athlete with a major American sports team), and the ruling earlier in 2013 by the
Supreme Court of the United States on the
Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marr ...
.
Commentary on the music and libretto was more mixed, though on balance favourable:
: "The music at times sounded thin and the dramatic pace sometimes flagged, but over all the score's cinematic flow aptly complemented the action on stage."
: "First-time opera composers most often flounder at dramaturgy, and ''Champion'' is a bewildering shuffle of episodes... Only a couple of quasi-arias and gratuitous dances are identifiably jazzy. Blanchard's inexperience with vocal writing is evident in stilted word-setting, and accompaniments often have little evident connection to vocal lines. Vamp-in-place sometimes makes do as underlay for both singing and spoken dialogue."
: "That makes this a durable piece of art. Remarkably impure as opera and as jazz, really, but unrelentingly true to itself, over-the-top when it needs to be and unapologetic, just like Verdi."
: "''Champion'' creates a complex picture of sexuality in a conservative era and a deeply homophobic sport. Although the opera's centerpiece, an aria for the title character called 'What Makes a Man a Man?', is a repetitive musical setting of bad music-theater doggerel, the cumulative effect of Griffith's sexual confusion, exploitation, and unwanted role-playing creates a powerful sense of disempowerment...
Second production
At the first performance of the second production, in San Francisco, criticisms were similar to the premiere, though again on balance positive:
: "Blanchard has made a point of calling ''Champion'' an 'opera in jazz' rather than a 'jazz opera', and as best I can tell, the distinction speaks to his eagerness to use the entire panoply of jazz's musical resources to tell this tale. The score is varied and formally lithe, with each new scene seeming to take a different musical approach...
Washington National Opera production
The Washington National Opera production had comparable critiques of the work:
: "''Champion'' is a chain of individual numbers, some of them more predictable than others, and it could stand to be cut, particularly in Act II. But it represents something important and worthwhile, not only in including fresh perspectives but also in presenting, in
rthurWoodley's Emile, a character I loved and will remember—which is more than many new operas can boast."
References
Further reading
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* {{Cite news, url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323683504578565410759369152, title=A Heavy Weight to Bear, work=
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
, author=Heidi Waleson, date=June 24, 2013
External links
"Terence Blanchard Turns A Tragic Champion Into An Opera Hero". ''All Things Considered'', National Public Radio, 15 June 2013Opera Parallèle page on ''Champion''
2013 operas
Cultural depictions of American men
Cultural depictions of boxers
English-language operas
Operas
Operas based on real people
Operas by Terence Blanchard
Operas set in the 20th century
Operas set in the 21st century
Operas set in the United States