JUSTIN AUSTIN AS a younger Emile Griffith.
Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the Lyric premiere of Grammy Award-winning composer Terence Blanchard and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning librettist Michael Cristofer’s knockout opera “Champion” on stage January 27 to February 11.
An “opera in jazz,” “Champion” marks Music Director Enrique Mazzola’s first contemporary opera at Lyric. Audiences were profoundly moved by Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” in the 2021/22 Season and, using the boxing ring as a lens, “Champion” explores similarly operatic issues of race, sexuality, and self-discovery.
Fight with pride. “I kill a man and the world forgives me. I love a man and the world wants to kill me.” “Champion” tells the true story of Emile Griffith, a professional boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who threw a fatal punch in the boxing ring in 1962 after being taunted for his sexuality by his rival.
Through flashback, an aging Emile reflects on his tumultuous life, from his Caribbean upbringing and conflicted sexuality to his meteoric rise in the ring and ensuing decline in health. Battling years of guilt, regret and denial, he faces his greatest fight: coming to terms with his true self.
Creative geniuses at ringside. Grammy Award-winning composer Blanchard uses jazz as the basis for a cinematic and groundbreaking score — his first for opera — filled with bluesy harmonies and Afro-Caribbean beats. A four-piece jazz combo will be embedded into the Lyric Opera Orchestra, allowing Blanchard’s jazz-infused score to shine. The libretto of Cristofer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Best Play for “The Shadow Box,” ably shifts through a number of time periods to bring the many facets of Emile — his boxing career, his sexuality, his hopes and dreams as an American immigrant — to powerful life on the opera stage.
Enrique Mazzola’s first contemporary opera in Chicago. In his third season as Lyric’s Music Director, Mazzola leads the esteemed Lyric Opera Orchestra through a series of momentous firsts.
A multi-faceted lead character. “Champion’s” deeply poignant central character of Emile Griffith is portrayed by three different singers. Reginald Smith, Jr., who earned great acclaim for his performance as Uncle Paul in Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” He stars as the older Emile Griffith. A 2015 winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, Smith recently enjoyed great success in the title role of Houston Grand Opera’s “Falstaff.”
The rising star Justin Austin sings the role of Young Emile. Austin is the 2023 winner of the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Vocal Award.
Naya James, a 6th grader at Highland Elementary in Downers Grove, performs the role of Little Emile. Watch for a trio in which all three Emiles join together in a prayer for strength.
Another knockout punch from Lyric’s own. Lyric’s acclaimed artist-development program — The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center — is well represented in the cast of “Champion,” with many members, including Whitney Morrison as Emelda Griffith, Emile’s estranged mother. I wrote about Morrison, from the South Side, in 2017 when she first became a member of Lyric Opera’s Ensemble.
At that time, she said: “I had always known the Lyric to be a company of the highest quality, and I had come to know the Ryan Opera Center, specifically, as a leading young artist program while I was a student at Eastman School of Music [Rochester, New York],” Morrison said. “Once I finished my course work, I did research to learn if any of the voice professionals at Lyric offered lessons. That led me to my teacher Julia Faulkner’s website. There was an option to book a lesson, so I selected it with no prior communication. I studied with her and when auditions for the Ryan Opera Center came around, the next natural step was for me to participate. I went through with the process and here I am!”
The public is invited to attend a free post-performance discussion on Champion’s place in the operatic canon: Opera Insights: The Black Liberation Movement in Classical Music on Wednesday afternoon, January 31, immediately following that day’s performance of “Champion.” The event is moderated by University of Michigan professor Dr. Antonio C. Cuyler and features a panel including composer Ahmed Alabaca, singer Nicholas Newton, and three members of the composers collaborative known as the Blacknificent 7: Jessie Montgomery, Damien Geter and Shawn Okpebholo. This dynamic discussion will explore the history of Black music, Black characters in opera, and Black composers in classical music — past, present, and future. The event begins with a light reception at 4:00 p.m. for those not attending the performance, and the one-hour panel discussion will begin at 5:00 p.m. in Lyric’s Ardis Krainik Theatre. The discussion is free.
For more information and tickets, visit lyric opera.org/champion or call 312.827.5600.
