''The Central Park Five'' is a two-act American opera composed by Anthony Davis with libretto by
Richard Wesley
Richard Wesley (born July 11, 1945) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is an associate professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in the Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing.
Early life
Wesley w ...
. It premiered on June 15, 2019, at the
Long Beach Opera Long Beach Opera is a Southern California opera company serving the greater Los Angeles and Orange County metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest continually running opera company in the L.A. area. Though small in size, the company has surveye ...
Company in California. The premiere was directed by Andreas Mitisek and conducted by Leslie Dunner. Davis was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted ...
for the opera on May 4, 2020. An earlier, shorter version, titled ''Five'', was premiered in
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Trilogy Company. A staged concert production has been announced by New York City Opera for 2021.
Summary
The opera is based on the 1989 incident in which a woman was raped and beaten and eight other people injured in New York's
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
. Five African-American and Hispanic teenagers were convicted of assault and other charges; they served years in prison but were ultimately exonerated. The opera's large cast includes the five teenagers; five of their parents; Matias Reyes, the serial rapist ultimately proven to be the actual perpetrator; the prosecutor; a generic detective referred to as "The Masque"; and even
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, then a New York real estate developer, who published multiple full page newspaper ads demanding "Bring back the death penalty!"
Roles
Reaction
Mark Swed of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' said the premiere production offered "musical excellence, with a strong cast, an orchestra that could cook and viscerally stunning conducting from Leslie Dunner". He added that the acting provided "moments of intense drama" and the "supercharged" score created "tension, terror, dismay and, in the most revealing moments, tenderness and hope".
Gordon Williams, writing for ''Opera Wire'', called it "an incredibly effective presentation" of "a powerful work that shines a spotlight on an important event", describing it an ensemble piece with a powerful libretto and a strong cast.
Accolades
The Pulitzer Prize committee cited the work as "a courageous operatic work, marked by powerful vocal writing and sensitive orchestration, that skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful".
Composer Davis commented, "I'm excited, thrilled and honored that this work has been recognized this way," adding "it’s exciting for me that you can create political work that has an impact and speak to issues in our society. I’ve done my career creating political works, and I never thought I would ever get a Pulitzer."