Terence Blanchard’s Champion—MET PREMIERE
Live in HD date: April 29, 2023
Librettist: Michael Cristofer
Production: James Robinson
Set Designer: Allen Moyer
Costume Designer: Paul Tazewell
Lighting Designer: Donald Holder
Projection Designer: Greg Emetaz
Choreographer: Camille A. Brown
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Conductor); Latonia Moore (Emelda Griffith), Stephanie Blythe (Kathy Hagan), Ryan Speedo Green (Young Emile Griffith), Eric Owens (Emile Griffith)
Six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard brings his first opera to the Met after his Fire Shut Up in My Bones made history in the 2021–22 season. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzosoprano Stephanie Blythe is the bar owner Kathy Hagan. Yannick Nézet-Séguin returns to the podium to conduct Blanchard’s second Met premiere. Director James Robinson, whose productions of Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Porgy and Bess brought down the house, oversees the staging. Camille A. Brown, whose choreography electrified audiences in Fire and Porgy, also returns.
THANK YOU TO OUR MET OPERA SPONSORS: Lead underwriters for this season are Wendy Ware & Dan Gleason. Additional sponsorship provided by our opera hosts: Don Bourque & Susan Knowlton, and Jeffrey Ingram & Steve Travis.
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