Champion: An Opera In Jazz Study Guide

Music by Terence Blanchard Libretto Michael Cristofer

STUDY GUIDE

EMERSON CUTLER MAJESTIC THEATRE MAY 18, 20 & 22

May 16, 2022 Dear Educators, Boston Lyric Opera is pleased to invite high school and college students to attend Final Dress May 16, 2022 Rehearsals throughout our Season. We look forward to welcoming you to the Cutler Majestic Theatre for BLO’s production of Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion: An Opera in Jazz.

Educators, It isDear important to know that this opera includes scenes of violence, homophobia, sexual content, andBoston profanity. helpis you besttoprepare forschool the opera, pleasestudents note that this Study Lyric To Opera pleased invite high and college to attend Final Guide Dress describes plotRehearsals details and events and discusses subject matter that may be to some.

Our intent is to throughout our Season.

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The experience of seeing and hearingas live, preparations Champion. included special insights into this production well as the professional opera is second to none, and we encourage you to explore the world of the opera in opera’s history with connections to Social Studies and English Language Arts. your classroom as well. We are proud to offeWW this Study Guide to support your discussions and preparations for Champion. We’ve included special insights into this production as well as the Boston Lyric Opera’s mission is to to Social build curiosity, and support for opera. This Study opera’s history with connections Studies andenthusiasm, English Language Arts.

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by Boston this beautiful art form and isintroduce it to yourenthusiasm, students. and As we continue to develop additional Guide is one way in which we support the incredible work of educators like you, who are inspired Study Guides, we want your feedback.

Please tell us about how you use this guide and how it can by this beautiful art form and introduce it to your students. As we continue to develop additional best serve your we needs emailing education@blo.org.

Study Guides, wantbyyour feedback.

Please tell us about how you use this guide and how it can best serve your needs by emailing education@blo.org.

If you’re interested in engaging with us further and learning about additional opera education If you’re interested in engaging with us further and learning about additional opera education opportunities with Boston Lyric Opera, please visit blo.org/education to discover more about our opportunities with Boston Lyric Opera, please visit blo.org/education to discover more about our programs programsand andinitiatives. initiatives. look forwardtotoseeing seeing you you at WeWe look forward at the theopera! opera!

Sincerely, Sincerely,

Rebecca Ann S. Kirk, M.Ed. Rebecca Ann S. Kirk, M.Ed. Director of Community and Learning Director of Community and Learning

TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAMPION SYNOPSIS

5

TERENCE BLANCHARD – LIVING LEGEND

7

CREATING AN OPERA IN JAZZ

9

A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ AND OPERA

12

THE REAL LIFE OF A CHAMPION

15

BOXING AND RACE

19

TOXIC MASCULINITY IN SPORTS

22

DRAG: AN INTRODUCTION

25

CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF CARNIVAL

27

LISTEN UP!

29

CHAMPION RESOURCES

30

HISTORY OF OPERA: AN OVERVIEW

34

THE SCIENCE AND ART OF OPERA

44

NOTES TO PREPARE FOR THE OPERA

52

STUDY GUIDE

Champion: An Opera in Jazz

4

CHAMPION SYNOPSIS

SYNOPSIS In his apartment on Long Island in the present day, Emile Griffith struggles to dress himself, suffering from dementia and confused. Luis, his adopted son, and caretaker, helps him get ready for an important meeting, and Emile’s memories intensify…

In the 1950s on the island of St. Thomas, Emile is a young man who dreams of reuniting with his mother, Emelda, and becoming a hat maker. He moves to New York City and finds her, and though she doesn’t recognize him, she is overjoyed to reunite with one of the children she left behind.

She brings him to meet Howie Albert, a hat manufacturer, hoping to find Emile work. Howie sizes up Emile and immediately recognizes his potential as a boxer. He offers to train him as a welterweight, and Emile quickly develops his natural talent and physique, as Emelda urges him to give up his other dreams. But Emile is lonely and struggles with his identity. He goes to a gay bar in Manhattan and meets Kathy, the owner, who welcomes him into an exciting but scary new community. Emile opens up to Kathy about his childhood and the cruelty he experienced from a fundamentalist relative.

As the 1960s continue, Emile amasses more wins, more fame, and more notoriety, but internally, he is haunted by memories of Paret and grapples with his identity. He marries a woman named Sadie, going against the advice of Howie and Emelda. In the 1970s, however, his luck changes. He is on a losing streak and starting to show signs of “boxer’s brain” due to chronic traumatic brain injury. Emile rejects the support of his family and Howie, returning to Kathy’s bar, where he is brutally beaten by a group of bigots.

In the present, overcome with memories of the attack, Emile becomes agitated and confused; Luis calms him, reminding him all of that is in the past.

They go to meet Kid Paret’s son, Benny Paret, Jr., and Luis tells Benny about Emile’s condition. Emile expresses regret and asks Benny for his forgiveness, as voices from Emile’s past intensify and crescendo in his mind.

Luis takes Emile back home. Alone once more, Emile’s memories recede and hush.

In 1962, Emile is set to fight Benny “Kid” Paret in a high-profile match. When they face off at weighin, Paret taunts Emile, calling him “maricon,” a Spanish slur for homosexuals. Emile is furious, and they nearly come to blows right there. Howie pulls him away, but when Emile begins to explain why the insult hit so close to home, Howie refuses to have the conversation, telling him that the boxing world is not a place where he can be open about his sexuality.

Alone, Emile wrestles with his sense of manhood and self. The fight begins and quickly becomes heated.

Paret continues to mock him, and as the fight escalates, Emile delivers seventeen blows in seven seconds. Paret collapses, falls into a coma, and later dies.

Back in the present day, lost in his memories, Emile thinks that he sees Paret and speaks with him. Luis reorients him and reminds him that today, they will go to meet Paret’s son.

Emile Griffith posing in his boxing gear Creativity Commons Photo credit, Mick Baker CHAMPION SYNOPSIS

5

CHARACTERS

Emile Griffith, bass, an award-winning welterweight boxer from St. Thomas, now retired and suffering from dementia Young Emile Griffith, bass baritone, his younger self Emelda Griffith, mezzo-soprano, Emile’s mother Howie Albert, baritone, Emile’s trainer Kathy Hagan, mezzo-soprano, bar owner Benny ‘Kid’ Paret, tenor, Emile’s competitor, another award-winning boxer Benny Paret Jr., tenor, Benny ‘Kid’ Paret’s son Luis Rodrigo Griffith, tenor, Emile’s adopted son and caretaker Sadie Donastrog Griffith, soprano, Emile’s wife Cousin Blanche, soprano Little Emile, boy soprano, Emile as a child Ring Announcer, tenor

6

CHAMPION CHARACTERS

TERENCE BLANCHARD – LIVING LEGEND

DID YOU KNOW? Terence Blanchard’s favorite opera is La Bohème.

Terence Blanchard playing his instrument of choice, the trumpet Creativity Commons

Terence Blanchard is a six-time Grammy award-winning jazz musician and composer with trumpet as his primary instrument. He was born in 1962 and raised in New Orleans.

He grew up steeped in music of many genres.

His father was a classically trained singer and sang in church as well as in a group called the B Sharps. Blanchard has many fond memories of listening to classical music and opera with his father in the evenings when he was a child. He began studying piano at the age of five and picked up trumpet soon after when he was eight. He studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, an arts high school, with friend and fellow trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis. Blanchard began performing at the age of 20 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, and two years later replaced Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakely’s Jazz Messengers where he was the band’s leader for a time and recorded several albums.

Blanchard parted ways with the Messengers to work on his own projects including recording his first solo album, as well as playing for film scores directed by Spike Lee. Lee then invited Blanchard to compose scores for his films, starting with Jungle Fever in 1991. Since then, Blanchard and Lee have collaborated on dozens of film projects including Malcolm X (1992), Summer of Sam (1999), 25th Hour (2002), BlacKkKlansman (2018), and Da 5 Bloods (2020).

Blanchard has also composed scores for other films, having over 50 on his resume so far. He has continued to produce and record studio albums as well, so that his discography includes over 30 albums to date.

Filmmaker Spike Lee with his Peabody Award, 2011 Creativity Commons CC BY 2.0 Photo Credit, Peabody Awards/Anders Krusberg

CHAMPION TERENCE BLANCHARD – LIVING LEGEND

7

DID YOU KNOW? In Disney’s 2009 animated film, The Princess and the Frog, Terence Blanchard played all the trumpet parts for the alligator Louis, and he voiced the part of the band leader in the riverboat band.

Terence Blanchard became Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in 2000. This conservatory, previously housed at University of California Los Angeles, was moved in 2007 to Loyola University in New Orleans in order to strengthen the legacy of jazz centered in the community following the devastation of hurricane Katrina.

Mentoring and teaching young musicians is something he is passionate about, as well as a commitment to his own continued learning and growth. Blanchard has served on faculty and in leadership positions at other institutions including Berklee College of Music in Boston and currently at UCLA as chair of the jazz studies department.

In 2011, Jazz St. Louis and Opera Theater of Saint Louis, who were looking to work together to commission an opera combining the two genres, approached Terence Blanchard about the opportunity. His first opera, Champion: An Opera In Jazz, premiered in 2013. The collaboration was a success, and he was commissioned by Opera Theater of Saint Louis to write a second opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which premiered in 2019. It then debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021, making him the first black composer to have an opera be produced by the Met.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPVwPYZ6guU

Blanchard founded his newest quintet in the spirit of his beginnings as a part of Art Blakely’s Jazz Messengers, to continue to mentor the careers of younger musicians.

The E-Collective was founded in 2015, with a sound that fuses old and new jazz with funk, R&B, and blues influences. Members include Fabian Almazan on piano, Charles Altura on guitar, David Ginyard on bass, and Oscar Seaton on drums. They have since recorded three albums with the most recent, Absence (2021), a tribute to Wayne Shorter. Blanchard also maintains another group, the Turtle Island Quartet which was founded in 1985.

Blanchard keeps a busy schedule composing, performing, teaching, and mentoring. He splits his time between his native New Orleans and Los Angeles with his wife (and manager), Robin Burgess and four children.

REFLECT What inspires you about Terence Blanchard’s career? If you could ask him any question what would it be and why?

CREATING AN OPERA IN JAZZ

Even as Terence Blanchard is a very seasoned jazz musician and film score composer, and he’s been an opera-lover his whole life, the process of writing an opera was different than any other musical compositional experience he’d had. Blanchard describes the difference:

Champion: An Opera in Jazz was commissioned

“Film is such a static thing in that once it’s shot, it’s

out of a collaboration between Opera Theater of St. Louis and Jazz St. Louis. In deciding what story to tell through opera, Blanchard was inspired by the story of Emile Griffith, and particularly moved by a quote by Griffith that he read: “I killed a man and the world forgave

shot and you’re responding to that. In opera, there’s

me, yet I loved a man and the world has still never

no visual for me to respond to. I’m creating the scenes

forgiven me.”

and the sonic palettes in my studio.” Operas take

a long time to ripen from idea, to page, to stage — years in the making. “The experience of writing Champion, my first opera, was terrifying.

I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. But at a certain point, I had to not care. My composition teacher told me, ‘Don’t write an opera, just tell a story.’ So that’s what I did — I told a story and things changed,” Blanchard wrote.

Six-time Grammy award-winning jazz musician and composer Terence Blanchard Creativity Commons

CHAMPION CREATING AN OPERA IN JAZZ

9

DID YOU KNOW? Oscar Hernandez, a contemporary of Terence Blanchard, composed the film score for Ring of Fire. Hernandez is a multiple Grammy award winning composer and Latin jazz pianist, who founded the Spanish Harlem Orchestra.

The opera is based on a documentary film from 2005, Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story. Award-winning actor, playwright, and filmmaker Michael Cristofer wrote the libretto. The opera was workshopped in 2012 at Opera Fusion: New Works, a collaboration between Cincinnati Opera and University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, before it premiered at Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2013. Incidentally, the year 2012 marked the 50-year anniversary of the Griffith-Paret fight, and Emile Griffith passed away in the summer of 2013, months after the opera premiered bringing his story to life through music.

Michael Cristofer, who wrote the libretto for Champion Creativity Commons

10

CHAMPION CREATING AN OPERA IN JAZZ

Terence Blanchard is careful to distinguish his opera is not a jazz opera, rather an opera in jazz.

The distinction is that the intention is to bring his musical language, culture, and ethos into the composition of an opera, not to write an opera that makes a particular statement about jazz. His work is using the improvisational vocabulary of jazz in the compositional framework of an opera. This is not unlike other opera composers across time who took the musical influences they grew up with and knew deeply and infused them into their operatic storytelling.

Terence Blanchard’s “Champion: An Opera In Jazz” preview by SF Jazz https://youtu.be/0WTRzqCxSx0

Blanchard scored the opera for voice and orchestra, and it also features a jazz quartet.

His decades of film scoring experience certainly influenced his work, even as opera is a very specific and different story-telling medium. What was new to him was working on writing for the operatic voice, which is such a specifically trained instrument. Still, he worked to create a specifically American opera sound, encouraging the singers to bring their own diverse musical backgrounds into the performance.

“To have people walk around and sing your lines, and to put together a wardrobe and see the set created, it’s all pretty crazy when you think about it. Opera really is the highest form of music theater,” Blanchard

notes. Since its world premiere, Champion has been performed in San Francisco and Washington DC. Boston Lyric Opera will be the fourth company to produce the work. Ten years after its premiere, in the 2022-23 Season, it will open at the Metropolitan Opera, following the success of Blanchard’s second opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

DISCUSS: Based on Blanchard’s articulation that his opera uses the jazz language to tell a story using opera convention, how might this collaboration (and similar ones by other composers) influence the evolution of each genre independently?

CHAMPION HIGH VOICES SYNOPSIS

11

A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ AND OPERA

Jazz is a genre of music that is uniquely American, specifically rooted in the African American communities in New Orleans. Jazz was born from the unique mix of cultural and musical influences in the port city in the late 19th century — including classical European ballroom dance music mixing with French military band music, Spanish folk music, Negro Spirituals, and West African folk songs, along with other American musical genres that came before including Ragtime and Blues.

Ragtime originated “up river,” in Missouri and is characterized by a syncopated piano playing.

Scott Joplin is one of the most celebrated Ragtime composers, known for his “Maple Leaf Rag.” Joplin also penned an opera, Treemonisha, and finished the piano vocal score in 1909, but it was never performed in his lifetime. He didn’t call it a “ragtime opera,” rather used his classical compositional training and intuition to weave together the folk musical roots from his family and community to tell a Black American story.

Although not a jazz opera either, Joplin’s opera was one of the first to begin to define how American opera would grow into its own unique sound.

Treemonisha’s score cover Creativity Commons 12

CHAMPION A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ AND OPERA

Both Ragtime and Blues are seen as very close relatives to what emerged as Jazz. Jazz is broadly characterized by music that was (at least at first) not written down, an oral and aural tradition that also depended on each musician’s unique style and improvisation. Throughout the 1920s what came to be known as Dixieland Jazz quickly became popular across the United States and even in Europe. Emerging jazz scenes in cities including New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC began to influence additional styles to come, including Swing, Latin Jazz, Cool Jazz, Be-bop, Hard Bop, Soul Jazz, Free Jazz, Jazz Fusion, Acid Jazz, and Jazz Rap. Some of these different styles were influenced by other musical genres including Gospel, Rhythm and Blues, Soul, Funk, and Rap—all other genres that are rooted in rich African American traditions and 20th century Black culture.

DID YOU KNOW? There were several other great Black American opera composers in the late 19th and early 20th century that didn’t incorporate jazz styles, and instead were compelled by other musical influences, and yet are still not often known for their legacy and innovation. These included H. Lawrence Freeman, Shirley Graham DuBois, James P. Johnson, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and many others.

Playbill from National Theatre’s production of Porgy and Bess, 1936 Creativity Commons

Photograph of William Grant Still taken by Carl Van Vechten Creativity Commons

Parallel to and interwoven with the evolution of jazz was the emergence of a distinct form of American opera. In the height of the Harlem Renaissance, composer William Grant Still, who was a master of European grand opera form, fused that with the African American experience and mythology, both in the music compositional style as well as the storytelling. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and penned his first opera, Blue Steel (1934), seamlessly infusing jazz idioms and influences, as well as adding influences of Negro Spirituals. Blue Steel premiered one year before George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935). Still went on to compose eight more operas culminating in a collaboration with poet Langston Hughes on Trouble Island, written in 1939. It was premiered a decade later by the New York City Opera, making him the first Black composer to have an American grand opera premiered by a major U.S. opera company. And yet, over time, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, is what has endured in popular culture as the exemplar of jazz, opera, and the Black American experience.

The 1970s brought a resurgence of new American opera being commissioned, composed, and produced, in addition to works by Black American composers being discovered, rediscovered, and performed. In 1972, Scott Joplin’s piano vocal score was orchestrated, and his opera Treemonisha premiered in Atlanta. Socio-culturally many events and movements were coinciding to create this fertile ground for opera including: the Black Power movement, wider dissemination of opera through radio and television with the eventual founding of the Public Broadcasting Service, the founding of many regional opera companies across the U.S., and changing dynamics in universities and conservatories so that they began to play a role in workshopping new operas being commissioned.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE: Watch Opera Night at the Boston Public Library performance lectures on Blackness and Identity in Opera with Dr. Naomi André and Opera & Jazz with Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle to learn more!

CHAMPION A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ AND OPERA

13

The 1970s and 80s in opera is often regarded as defined by composers including Phillip Glass and John Adams, and indeed they have made their mark. And yet, through the continued reciprocal influence of jazz and opera, several Black composers have reclaimed and expanded the musical conversation, creating operas that tell stories of the Black American experience and reflect the politics of the time.

Duke Ellington had been working on the idea of an opera about business and beauty pioneer and millionaire Madame CJ Walker as early as the 1930s, yet it wasn’t until the 1970s that he realized his creative dream, composing Queenie Pie, a comic opera commissioned by National Education Television (the predecessor of PBS).

It never premiered on tv, rather had a full production later by the American Music Theater Festival in 1986.

Anthony Davis is another significant composer

to the legacy of opera and jazz. His first opera, X, The Life and Time of Malcom X (1986) reclaimed the stories of Black historical figures within the theater space. He incorporated both the orchestral and vocal techniques of jazz and classical European opera influences in his score for a distinctly American sound, and a fully realized vision of how jazz and opera are in conversation within a work. Davis has premiered eight operas to date, and for his latest, Central Park 5, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2020.

Terence Blanchard’s operas continue this century-long conversation of jazz and opera to add to the legacy and further enrich the dialogue of musical storytelling, improvisation, and expansion of the kinds of stories told on the opera stage. He is in great company with many other contemporary composers, and specifically as it relates to jazz, most notably, Wayne Shorter, who recently realized a lifelong dream to compose an opera with the premiere of Iphigenia in 2021.

Composer Duke Ellington Creativity Commons

DISCUSS: 14

CHAMPION SYNOPSIS

How do you see contemporary American musical genres informing new opera compositions? If you wrote an opera, what kinds of musical influences would it have from your life?

THE REAL LIFE OF A CHAMPION

Emilie Griffith was born on February 3rd in 1938

in St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands. His mother, Emelda Griffith, was the first of his family to immigrate to the United States, and soon Emilie joined her in Harlem. When he was younger, Emilie wanted to be a hat designer, while his mother wanted him to be a singer. Emilie Griffith worked as a delivery boy for Howie Albert, who encouraged Griffith to get in to boxing and train with Gil Clancy. With the help of Clancy as a trainer and Albert as a manager, Emilie Griffith went on to become one of the best fighters of his time. He fought in over 330 world championship rounds, winning both welterweight and middleweight championships. Griffith was inducted to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 after a long and successful boxing career.

Boxer Emile Griffith Creativity Commons CC BY-NC 2.0 Photo credit, Roberto Vicario

Watch: THE TRAGEDY OF BENNY PARET AND EMILE GRIFFITH https://youtu.be/LbKSqHRIQ4k

CHAMPION THE REAL LIFE OF A CHAMPION

15

Emilie’s most notorious rivalry was between Benny “The Kid” Paret. Over the course of their careers, Paret and Griffith fought a total of three times. First, on April 1, 1961, Griffith won a welterweight title against Paret, knocking him out in the 13th-round. In the second match, in September of 1961, Paret won in a split-decision.

Griffith and Paret’s third match, shown at the end of Act I in Champion, was in March 1962. Before the match even began, Paret insulted Emile with a slur for a gay man before either man had entered the ring. Fueled by anger, Emilie Griffith landed 15 uppercuts to Paret, sending Paret into a coma. Ten days after their fight, Paret died. It has been commented that had Ruby Goldstein, the match’s referee, ended the round and intervened earlier, Paret may not have lapsed into a coma.

Benny ‘The Kid’ Paret in fighting pose before his death Creativity Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo credit, John Molesworth

GLOSSARY OF BOXING TERMS Welterweight is a boxing weight class. The max weight limit for this class is 147lbs.

Middleweight is a boxing weight class. The max weight limit for this class is 160lbs.

Split-decision win in boxing is when two of the three judges score one person

as the winner, while the third judge scores the other as the winner. This is different from a majority decision, which is when two judges score one person as the winner, while the third judge scores a draw, or tie.

16

CHAMPION GERMAN BORN, LONDON BOUND: GEROGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

Emilie Griffith’s sexuality has been the topic of news pieces, gossip, and films. Though never publicly coming out, as many current celebrities and athletes are pressured to do, Griffith’s sexuality was never a secret. He was known for frequenting gay night clubs in his free time between fights. While the character of Kay Hagan is fictionalized, Emilie often frequented the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.

On May 8, 1971, Emilie married Mercedes “Sadie” Donastorg, and while never officially divorced, their marriage only lasted a few months before they separated. Griffith was rumored to have had several long-term affairs with men throughout the course of his life.

Benny Paret had to be carried out of the ring after the Griffith vs. Paret fight Creativity Commons

In 1992, another tragedy struck. Griffith was outside of a gay bar when he was mugged and beaten by five men. This attack, in addition to the sustained head injuries from his boxing career, contributed to Emilie’s later in life dementia.

DID YOU KNOW? During the historic Griffith versus Paret fight, television commentator Don Dunphy, misunderstood the outcome of the match and requested a video, slow-motion replay.

This was the first time this type of replay had ever been used in TV history.

CHAMPION THE REAL LIFE OF A CHAMPION

17

“BOXERS’ BRAIN” Though there is evidence that suggests sustained brain injuries can lead to long term brain dysfunctions, such as dementia, it is important to note that, in relation to boxing, these injuries tend to come culminating after multiple, sustained blows rather than “knockout” blows. Brain injuries were more common in professional boxers with extensive fight histories.

Emilie Griffith died on July 23, 2013, just after the world premiere of Blanchard’s opera Champion. He was survived by his adopted son and long-term caregiver, Luis Rodrigo Griffith.

Griffith’s adopted son and long-term caregiving, Luis Rodrigo Griffith Creativity Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 Photo credit, 4meter4

DISCUSS: What contemporary real-life stories would be well-served told through opera? Why do we tell stories through music and theater?

18

CHAMPION

BOXING AND RACE

The history of boxing is closely tied to the history of race in the United States. Despite being illegal at different points in time in the United States and the United Kingdom, boxing was an opportunity to raise social status for many Black Americans. It was also a pathway to financial success that boxers could springboard into other more entrepreneurial avenues. Prize earnings were hefty, and the social influence was life changing.

Boxing was profitable because of its spectacle.

In efforts to increase the sensation, promoters would often mythologize fighters to entice spectators, increase ticket sales, and raise stakes for gamblers. But this mythologizing also capitalized on white Americans’ fears and emphasized racial prejudice, often at the cost of Black boxers’ careers.

Many white boxers outright refused any match against a Black boxer. For example, lightweight boxer, Joe Gans, was often forced to throw, or lose on purpose, matches to his white opponents, despite his fame as the 1902 lightweight champion. This mythologizing was most notable in the early 20th century, and the racial divide in boxing was heightened when Black heavyweight boxer, Jack Johnson, broke barriers.

In 1908, Jack Johnson competed in the heavyweight world championship against the Irish American boxer Tommy Burns. Johnson won in what was considered not a fight but a “slaughter,” becoming the first Black heavyweight World Champion. White boxing fans were angry and upset, so promoters and boxing clubs began pushing for a new, white boxer to reclaim the title, calling it the search for the “Great White Hope.”

Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson, 1915 Public Domain, From the Bain Collection (LOC)

Before Johnson’s win, the heavyweight championship was glorified as the symbolic pinnacle of white masculinity, and Johnson’s victory challenged this ideal radically. Racialized fear of “Black superiority” swept through the boxing scene as the “Great White Hope” search became more desperate. Pressured by the press and fans to come out of retirement, former white heavyweight champion James Jeffries challenged Jack Johnson in 1910. The press coverage of the months leading up to the fight was intense, causing heightened anticipation for the match.

CHAMPION BOXING AND RACE

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Joe Louis (left) fighting Jersey Joe Walcott (right) IN COPYRIGHT - RIGHTS-HOLDER(S) UNLOCATABLE OR UNIDENTIFIABLE, via Getty Museum

Poster from the Johnson vs. Jeffries match, 1910 Creativity Commons CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Photo credit, h2kyaks

Johnson won the fight to the horror of white America, and the white backlash was swift.

Multiple cities across the United States broke out in riots as white boxing fans unleashed their anger on Black civilians. Mobs formed, Black tenements were burned, and people were killed. Politicians lobbied to prevent the fight from being screened in theaters, afraid of more violent responses. The aftermath of the Johnson v. Jeffries fight remains one of the most violent racial-motivated riots in the early twentieth century. Boxing had become a threat to white hegemony and civil unrest.

During World War I, however, opinions of boxing began to change as it was incorporated into military training regimens. The sport’s popularity increased again before World War II, and a new boxer emerged. Joe Louis was a Black heavyweight boxer and is considered one of the most influential boxers. Louis spent a considerable amount of time negotiating his public image, highlighting the double standard for Black boxers.

Louis was intentional in his post-win actions, careful not to gloat, and portrayed himself as devoutly religious. Despite this, Louis was still often written about through racist stereotypes.

20

CHAMPION BOXING AND RACE

In 1938, Louis was set to fight German boxer Max Schmeling. To Americans, Schmeling represented the Nazi Party, and Louis’s win against Schmeling was nationalized and glorified as the US was triumphing over Germany. This moment turned Joe Louis into an American hero, and with this status, Louis went on to encourage other athletes to continue to desegregate boxing and other sports.

Advertisement for boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, 1938 Public Domain, via Twentieth Century Sporting Club

Other notable 20th century African American boxers include Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, Henry Armstrong, Ike Williams, Sandy Saddler, Emile Griffith (Champion’s protagonist), Bob Foster, Jersey Joe Walcott, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman. Many historians note that while several of these fighters had notable rivalries, such as Sandy Saddler versus Willie Pep, and Champion’s focus, Emile Griffith versus Benny Paret, none had the notoriety of Jack Johnson and Joe Louis until Muhammad Ali.

their religious, racial, and athletic identities.

When Ali was denied status as a consensus objector and was eventually stripped of his boxing license and championship, he became a global spokesperson for the Black Power movement, the anti-war movement, and was outspoken against American Imperialism.

Today, many Black boxers are still calling out racist media representation and promoters.

Floyd Mayweather has gone on the record to state that racism is prevalent in rankings and news coverage, referencing Ronda Rousey’s endorsements compared to her contemporary, Laila Ali. Mayweather has also been outspoken about how he is portrayed in the media compared to other fighters, such as Conor McGregor. More recently, Terence Crawford has filed a lawsuit against his former promoter. Crawford claims that the chairman of his former promoter, Bob Arum, “continues to make racist and bigoted statements and purposefully damage the reputations of Black boxers.” He also

states that “Arum’s sordid history with athletes of color, especially Black fighters, and his bias favoring Muhammad Ali on the front of a box of Wheaties Creativity Commons CC BY-NC 2.0 Photo credit, General Mills

Ali became one of the most controversial boxers and activists of all time. Muhammad Ali’s public image was whitewashed after his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1990, but he was one of the most polarizing athletes of the twentieth century.

Ali openly opposed the Vietnam War draft due to religious beliefs and, during the Civil Rights Movement, was an outspoken advocate for racial equality. As a result, he influenced both his contemporaries, such as Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and future Black athletes, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to embrace the intersections of

white and Latino fighters is well-documented and known throughout the boxing world.”

Boxing’s long-standing relationship with controversy and scandal has been what has propelled it to the heights of popularity. The action of mythologizing and villainizing boxers has had tangible social impacts and aligns with social justice movements throughout the last two centuries. But much like every major system and institution in the United States, it still has a long way to go.

REFLECT How has race shaped the careers of athletes in other sports, both men and women?

FIERCE WOMEN CHAMPION

21

TOXIC MASCULINITY IN SPORTS

Sports, for both kids and adults, have huge benefits. They build strong community—both with spectators and players, they promote teamwork and problem-solving skills, and they improve motor skills including dexterity and hand/eye coordination. They help people remain physically active, which can reduce stress and improve sleeping habits, among a host of other benefits to health and wellness. Yet many clubs, teams, and communities aren’t equitable and inclusive, with a prevalence of LGBT discrimination and prejudice, rooted in harmful masculine stereotypes, that create toxic environments for all athletes and sports fans alike, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

To understand how discrimination and prejudice is perpetuated in sports, it’s helpful to understand the way sports culture has shaped boys’ formation of their identity through emulating the Western “masculine ideal,” which can often become twisted into toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity is defined as a set of cultural norms in which boys and men are implicitly or explicitly encouraged to openly display expressions of dominance, aggression, and anger. These norms reject as “weak” various qualities assumed to be feminine, such as showing emotion or accepting help. The resulting behaviors can include wielding power forcefully over others as well as misogynistic and homophobic beliefs and behaviors that cause harm to society and men themselves.

Because of this propensity within many sports, the culture can be a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ athletes. This is one of the major plot points in the opera. Paret’s uttering of a homophobic slur ignited Griffith’s anger that led to the infliction of Paret’s injuries.

Unfortunately, there are many instances of homophobia in professional sports.

Emile Griffith on the September cover of El Grafico, 1971 Public Domain

22

CHAMPION TOXIC MASCULINITY IN SPORTS

Michael Sam, the first out football player to be drafted for the NFL Creativity Commons

In 2014, Michael Sam, the first football player to be out prior to being in the NFL, was drafted near-last despite having a good ranking. Sam also never played during a single NFL game that season, and many speculate that this was because of his sexuality. LGBTQ+ athletes will often remain closeted out of fear for their safety, if not leave the sport altogether.

Out On The Field collected data from two international studies on homophobia in sports, in 2015 and 2019, with data from over 12,000 LGBTQ+ folks who engaged with sports in some way. 80% of participants witnessed or experienced some type of homophobia during their time playing sports or watching sports.

Be it practice, a game/match, a locker room, or as a spectator, 84% of gay men and 82% of lesbians heard homophobic slurs, 38% of gay men and 18% of lesbians were bullied, 27% of gay men and 16 % of lesbians received verbal threats, and 19% of gay men and 9% of lesbians were physically assaulted. Today, LGBTQ+ discrimination in sports can be seen as many states are banning Trans youth from participating in school sports altogether.

A culture of toxic masculinity in sports doesn’t just harm LGBTQ+ athletes. Misogynistic practices harm women who participate in sports, too. Women are stereotypically viewed as “the weaker sex,” and this plays out in women’s leagues in a variety of ways, which are often run by men. Women’s collegiate programs receive less funding than men’s programs. Women, particularly women of color, often face scrutiny of their physical appearance, overshadowing their athletic performance. Ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, many female athletes spoke out against unfair, and sometimes contradictory rules between men’s and women’s uniforms.

And women continue to fight for pay equality in professional sports, as the discrepancy is significant.

Children have always participated in physical games. But children’s–particularly boys’– recreational sports increased in the early twentieth century. As mandatory schooling laws began to emerge in the US, a newfound distinction was created—when children were in school and when they weren’t. They now had free time as a common and regular structure in their life, which concerned adults.

Progressive reformers were worried that the idle, unstructured, and unsupervised time of young men particularly in urban, low-income, and immigrant communities would lead to mischief, perhaps even crime. The New York Public School Athletic League for Boys was created in 1903, and, since then, recreational sports have been highly encouraged and celebrated.

The US Women’s National Soccer Team winning the 2019 FIFA World Cup. The team sued the U.S. Soccer Federation over the wage gap between the men’s and women’s soccer leagues. Creativity Commons CHAMPION TOXIC MASCULINITY IN SPORTS

23

Recreational sports leagues, however, served a dual purpose. Not only were they an outof-school-time activity for boys, but they were also seen as a training ground for future workers. In an increasingly industrial society throughout the early 20th century, social reformers believed that sports could teach cooperation, a strong work ethic, a respect for authority, and the importance of building physical strength. Tournaments were added to the leagues and clubs as an incentive to keep boys returning to the sport and increase the sense of competition. This competitive culture tended to reinforce a social hierarchy with more value placed on players who could master the necessary physical skills, and less value on those players that could not. When this was assigned to a boy’s value to society as a future worker, this correlation between skill in a particular sport and self-worth could become easily conflated. This had not only internal ramifications on a boy’s identity formation, but also external ones in the form of acceptance into peer groups and society.

It’s a slippery slope when all of these elements twist into displays of toxic masculinity, and perpetuate a culture of exclusion—which can happen all too often from youth sports all the way to professional leagues—when the pressure to conform to a certain particular definition of “masculine” to be valued, turns into misogynistic and homophobic verbal or physical behaviors that are deeply harmful to the community as a whole, as well as the individuals involved. Although communities have made some strides in fostering more inclusive, less toxic environments in sports, there is much more work to do to create equity and access in athletic organizations to make the benefits to participating in sports welcome to all.

Emile Griffith with the Stonewall Veterans’ Association at the NYC Pride Parade, 2007 Creativity Commons Photo credit, CS Smith

DISCUSS: CHAMPION LISTEN UP!

How can the musical composition depict different nuances and complexities of the male characters to tell this story of a boxing tragedy?

DRAG: AN INTRODUCTION

Drag is both a performance and culture. The term originally came from 19th century British theater slang to refer to the practice of men dressing up as women, referencing how a woman’s gown would “drag” across a floor as she walked. Throughout the centuries, drag has evolved into a highly stylized performance of gender. Drag Queens explore the performance of femininity and Drag Kings explore the performance of masculinity. While drag is open to all genders and sexualities, drag as we know it today evolved from LGBTQ+ nightlife in the United States in the twentieth century.

While it’s possible to participate in drag without having to perform, performance is what usually comes to mind when people think of drag.

From pageants to franchise reality television shows, drag can be seen almost anywhere.

At a pageant, Queens compete in various categories, and showcase a variety of talents, from dancing to lip-syncing to cat-walking.

Sometimes drag is incorporated into burlesque performances, comedy routines, and other live performances too. It has been infused into pop culture in the 21st century, and has influenced many aspects of style, art, comedy, fashion, make-up, and performance.

Bob The Drag Queen at Rupaul’s Dragcon, 2017 Creativity Commons CC0 1.0 Photo credit, dvsross

Late 19th Century/Early 20th Century Drag Kings in White River Junction, Vermot Public Domain

CHAMPION DRAG: AN INTRODUCTION

25

Sign from outside the history Stonewall Inn, 2015 Creativity Commons CC PDM 1.0 Photo Credit, Travis Wise

The culture began, however, as fringe, in safe spaces, and was largely taboo, even actively discriminated against. Masquerade laws, put in place in the late 19th century, which were largely written to target white people dressing in Native American warpaint, were applied to those in drag to criminalize anyone who was dressed outside of traditionally gendered clothing. LGBTQ+ people were arrested in bar raids and were often the target of street sexual harassment and assault from police. One of the more infamous bar raids was the 1969 Stonewall Raids. The Stonewall Uprising was led

by Black Trans women and is cited as a turning point in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

Stonewall paved the way for a new way of LGBTQ+ activism, in many ways, drag performers are closely tied to LGBTQ+ history.

Drag troupes like The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, have raised over $1 million for LGBTQ+ causes and taken part in ACT UP protests. For the past two years the Drag March for Change has taken place in Chicago to divest from corporate Pride parades and invest in protecting the LGBTQ+ community, particularly BIPOC LGBTQ+ community members. Individual drag performers frequently use their platforms for education and protest.

While Emile Griffith was not known to dress in drag, he did frequent clubs and bars where it was an important part of the culture including Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Later in life he was the vice president of the Stonewall Veterans’ Association.

DISCUSS: 26

CHAMPION LISTEN UP!

What elements do you see in popular culture today that originated from drag culture?

CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF CARNIVAL

In the opera, Emile Griffith’s memories are colored through rosy images of carnival celebrations from his childhood representing joyful dreamy times. This colorful backdrop has a rich history. Carnival is a large festival with roots in many different religious and cultural traditions and celebrated across Western Europe, and throughout the Caribbean and Brazil.

The origins are rooted in Western European preChristian tradition that marked the changing seasons from winter to spring or fall to winter.

The Roman Catholic Church appropriated these seasonal festivals, to allow a final lavish indulgence before the beginning of forty days of fasting and prayer for Lent leading up to Easter. In the colonized world, these traditions were adopted and woven with more practices that incorporated indigenous traditions and cultural traditions brought by slaves. In New Orleans, for example, French Creole traditions helped to shape carnival into the largest carnival celebration in the United States, known as Mardi Gras. Carnival celebrations include feasts, parades, dances, costumes, masks, and other unique variations tied to different specific cultural practices both ancient and contemporary. While there are many specifics and intricacies to each region’s celebration of carnival including specific foods, religious ceremonies, two will be featured in the opera: costumes and music.

Carnaval costume in Rio de Janeiro, 2014 Creativity Commons CC0 1.0 Photo Credit, by Nicolas de Camaret

DID YOU KNOW? St. Thomas, the birthplace of Emilie Griffith, hosted it’s 70th Carnival Celebration in late April through early May of 2022.

CHAMPION CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF CARNIVAL

27

Carnival costuming traditions vary by region.

In Brazil and the Caribbean, costumes featured large feather headdresses with materials including feathers, bone, grass, beads, and shells as embellishments, for dancing and parading. The tradition of ornate, colorful clown-like masks has origins in Venice, Italy.

Dressing up for carnival allows people to express themselves in ways they may not normally. Over the decades, costumes continued to become more elaborate and even risqué–showing skin, and even celebrating in drag.

Music is also an essential aspect of carnival.

Brazil celebrates with samba music, originating from Afro-Brazilian communities.

In Trinidad, calypso created originally by enslaved Africans, was popularized through competitions that took place during carnival.

In the United States, before the creation of Jazz, the music played during Mardi Gras was a combination of African, French, Spanish, Caribbean, and Native American.

Venetian Carnival Mask, Maschera di Carnevale, Venice Italy Public Domain

DISCUSS: 28

LISTEN UP! CHAMPION

How do cultural festivals and traditions from your life shape your memories? What sounds and colors do you remember and how would you depict that in a story?

LISTEN UP!

Champion is still relatively new to the world, and there hasn’t yet been a professional recording made of the opera in its entirety. Still, Terence Blanchard is a prolific artist. Listen to the selections below to some of his work and influences, as well as brief selections of the opera.

Reflect on how Blanchard has established his musical voice within opera specifically.

Terence Blanchard (1991) “Sing Soweto” Listen to this track from Terence Blanchard’s first album to begin to get a feel for his early musical voice, and jazz influences. What does it make you think of? https://open.spotify.com/track/58rvmr9HyoLQofHinWxK1T?si=e83a680425534217

“Magnetic” from Magnetic (2013) was the album Blanchard was working on when he was writing Champion. What similarities and differences might there be between the two? https://open.spotify.com/track/68pfudLhgiuBICgGygCrdi?si=caa5307d9103432a

“What This Mission’s About?” from Da 5 Bloods (2021) Blanchard scored many films. Listen to this selection from this Oscar nominated score directed by Spike Lee. Here is one example of the rich orchestral text that he uses in his operas as well as his films. https://open.spotify.com/track/6gZpNkvDpjsTi02VV1O2WI?si=749c4c93531e4285

“Levees” from A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) (2007) Terence Blanchard collaborated with Spike Lee on a four-hour documentary for HBO called When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Act s (2006) following the hurricane that devastated New Orleans and the surrounding communities. This track is from an album he released inspired by some of that music. https://open.spotify.com/track/3KONJ7DK2pvmxpN9ej5BOa?si=b19bad3fb7904c56

Duet from Champion between Emile and his mother.

Washington National Opera produced Champion in 2017 and held a forum with Works & Progress at the Guggenheim. This excerpt features Denyce Graves and Kenneth Kellogg and is presented with piano. https://youtu.be/tn1xjAnm0YU?t=1071

Fight Scene from Act One of Champion. Opera Parallèle in San Francisco produced Champion in 2016. Listen to this ensemble clip with orchestra and many voices to hear the sound

world. Do you hear similarities with Blanchard’s other work? What specifically stands out? https://youtu.be/G553VZIpqeI

CHAMPION LISTEN UP!

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RESOURCES

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CHAMPION RESOURCES

BOOKS André, N. (2018). Black Opera, History, Power, Engagement. University of Illinois Press.

Gioia, T. (1968). The Prehistory of Jazz: The Africanization of American Music. In The History of Jazz. essay, Oxford UP. Kleist, R. (2020). Knock out!: The true story of Emilie Griffith. SELFMADEHERO. Lamb, C. (2016). Framing White Hopes. In From Jack Johnson to Lebron James: Sports, media, and the color line. essay, University of Nebraska Press.

Mcrae, D. (2016). A Man’s World. Simon & Schuster Ltd. Ross, R. (2008). Nine-- ten-- and out!: The two worlds of Emile Griffith. DiBella Entertainment.

WEBSITES André, N. (2021, September 27). Blaze of Glory. Metropolitan Opera.

Retrieved from https://www.metopera.org/discover/articles/blaze-of-glory/

Berg, A. (2007, June 9). Ex-Champion is prepared to join March.

Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/sports/othersports/09griffith.html

Blanchard, T. (2022, January 19). My First Opera: Terence Blanchard | OPERA America. Opera America.

Retrieved from https://www.operaamerica.org/r/people/7949/my-first-opera-terence-blanchard

Blanchard, T. (2022, March 9). Blanchard The Official Terence Blanchard.

Retrieved from http://www.terenceblanchard.com

Cassidy, R. (2002, December 5). The Great Rivalries. CBSSports.com.

Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120826002343/http:/www.cbssports.com/boxing/story/5981685

Del Vecchio, G. (2021, June 17). Chicago’s Drag March for Change is fighting for a world where it doesn’t need to exist. them.

Retrieved from https://www.them.us/story/chicago-drag-march-for-change-2021

Friedman, H. L. (2013, September 20). When did competitive sports take over American childhood?

The Atlantic.

Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/when-did-competitive-sports-take-over-americanchildhood/279868/

Joseph, P. E. (2016, June 4). Commentary: What made Muhammad Ali ‘unforgivably’ black.

Reuters.

Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-race-ali-commentary-idUSKCN0YQ0TZ

Klores, D. (2012, March 31). Emile Griffith, Benny Paret and the Fatal Fight. The New York Times.

Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/sports/emile-griffith-benny-paret-and-the-fatal-fight.html?_r=0

Lobo, A. (2022, January 4). Grammys 2022: UCLA faculty member strikes emotional chord in Grammy-nominated tribute album. Daily Bruin.

Retrieved from https://dailybruin.com/2022/01/04/ucla-faculty-member-strikes-emotional-chord-in-grammy-nominated-tributealbum

McRae, D. (2015, September 10). The night boxer Emile Griffith answered gay taunts with a deadly cortege of punches. The Guardian.

Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/sep/10/boxer-emile-griffith-gay-taunts-book-extract

Pugmire, L. (2013, July 24). Emile Griffith dies at 75; Champion Boxer struggled with his sexuality.

Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-emile-griffith-20130724-story.html

CHAMPION RESOURCES

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WEBSITES Reimann, M. (2017, March 24). When a black fighter won ‘the fight of the century,’ race riots erupted across America. Medium.

Retrieved from https://timeline.com/when-a-black-fighter-won-the-fight-of-the-century-race-riots-erupted-across-america3730b8bf9c98

Ryan, H. (2019, June 25). How dressing in drag was labeled a crime in the 20th century.

History.com.

Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/stonewall-riots-lgbtq-drag-three-article-rule

Salazar, D. (2020, June 15). Opera profile: ‘champion,’ Terrence Blanchard & Michael Cristofer’s ‘opera in jazz’. Opera Wire.

Retrieved from https://operawire.com/opera-profile-champion-terrence-blanchard-michael-cristofers-opera-in-jazz/

Staff, N. P. R. (2013, June 15). Terence Blanchard turns a tragic champion into an opera hero. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2013/06/15/191709047/terence-blanchard-turns-a-tragic-champion-into-an-opera-hero

Strachan, S. (2021, December 4). St. Charles Avenue activists of the year 2021. My New Orleans.

Retrieved from https://www.myneworleans.com/st-charles-avenue-activists-of-the-year-2021/

Vitale, T. (2021, September 27). Terence Blanchard makes history at the metropolitan opera. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2021/09/27/1040126008/terence-blanchard-metropolitan-opera-first-black-composer

Walls, S. C. (2019, September 19). Operas by black composers have long been ignored. explore 8.

Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/arts/music/black-operas-composers.html

JOURNALS Brake, Deborah. (2011). Sport and Masculinity: The Promise and Limits of Title IX. Masculinities and the Law: A Multidimensional Approach.

Rebecca A. Mattson, LGBTQ Athletes and Discrimination in Sport, in Sexual Orientation, Gender Identities, and the Law: A Research Bibliography, 2006-2016 (Dana Neacsu and David Brian Hold, eds., 2018).

Robert L. Heilbronner, Shane S. Bush, Lisa D. Ravdin, Jeffrey T. Barth, Grant L. Iverson, Ronald M. Ruff, Mark R. Lovell, William B. Barr, Ruben J. Echemendia, Donna K. Broshek, Neuropsychological Consequences of Boxing and Recommendations to Improve Safety: A National Academy of Neuropsychology Education Paper, Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, Volume 24, Issue 1, February 2009, Pages 11–19, https://doi.org/10.1093/arclin/acp005 Theodore, Peter & Basow, Susan. (2000). Heterosexual Masculinity and Homophobia. Journal of homosexuality. 40. 31-48. 10.1300/J082v40n02_03.

ENCYCLOPEDIA Collins, N. , Sammons, . Jeffrey Thomas , Wallenfeldt, . E.C. , Olver, . Ron , Poliakoff, . Michael , Krystal, . Arthur and Hauser, . Thomas (2021, December 16). boxing.

Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/sports/boxing

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopedia (2021, November 11). Carnival.

Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Carnival-pre-Lent-festival

PODCASTS Schrire, N (2021, September 21). Terence Blanchard (No.566) in The Jazz Session. https://www.

thejazzsession.com/2021/09/15/the-jazz-session-566-terence-blanchard/

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CHAMPION RESOURCES

VIDEOS Opera Parallèle. (2016, June 30). Opera Parallèle Blanchard, Champion Fight Scene, Act I H264 [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G553VZIpqeI

Opera Theatre St. Louis [OperaTheatreSTL]. (2012, December 14). “Tim’s Take” on Champion [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVQd7H28xts

Orleans, W. N. (2018, February 26). Terence Blanchard on CHAMPION - An Opera in Jazz [Video].

Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/257585583

San Francisco Jazz Festival [SFJazz]. (2015a, September 30). Terence Blanchard: The “Champion” Experience [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIdIGlxNuPY

San Francisco Jazz Festival [SFJazz]. (2015, October 19). Terence Blanchard’s “Champion: An Opera In Jazz” [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WTRzqCxSx0&t=9s

The Jazz Session. (2021, September 10). The Jazz Session: Terence Blanchard On His Historic Premiere & Representation In Opera [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMJrOmSKHkE

Washington National Opera [WashNatOpera]. (2017, January 31). Terence Blanchard on Champion [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8siNiit0OM4

Washington National Opera [Works & Process at the Guggenheim]. (2017, March 28).

Washington National Opera: Champion by Terence Blanchard [Video].

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn1xjAnm0YU

FILMS Berger, R. Klores, D. (2005). Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story [Film].

CHAMPION RESOURCES

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RENAISSANCE

1500

34

THE HISTORY OF OPERA

BAROQUE

1600-1750

CLASSICAL

1730-1820

THE HISTORY OF OPERA People have been telling stories through music for millennia throughout the world. Opera is an art form with roots in Western Europe dating back hundreds of years. Here is a brief timeline of its lineage.

ROMANTIC

1790-1910

20th CENTURY

1900

THE HISTORY OF OPERA

35

1598

RENAISSANCE

Jacopo Peri, a member of the Camerata, composed the world’s first opera – Dafne, reviving the classic myth.

1573

1607

The Florentine Camerata was founded in Italy, devoted to reviving ancient Greek musical traditions, including sung drama.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) wrote the first opera to become popular, Orfeo, making him the premier opera composer of his day and bridging the gap between Renaissance and Baroque music. His works are still performed today.

Toccata from L’Orfeo. Claudio Monteverdi Favola in musica. Reprint of the First Edition of the core, Venice 1609, via Wikimedia Commons 36

THE HISTORY OF OPERA

1689 Henry Purcell’s (1659-1695) simple and elegant chamber opera, Dido and Aeneas, premiered at Josias Priest’s boarding school for girls in London.

BAROQUE

1637

1712

The first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, was built in Venice, Italy.

George Frederic Handel (1685-1759), a German-born composer, moved to London, where he found immense success writing intricate and highly ornamented Italian opera seria (serious opera). Ornamentation refers to stylized, fast-moving notes, usually improvised by the singer to make a musical line more interesting and to showcase their vocal talent.

1673 Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) an Italian-born composer, brought opera to the French court, creating a unique style, tragédie en musique, that better suited the French language. Blurring the lines between recitative and aria, he created fast-paced dramas to suit the tastes of French aristocrats.

Dido and Aeneas, 1747, Pompeo Batoni, via Wikimedia Commons THE HISTORY OF OPERA

37

1805 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) although a prolific composer, wrote only one opera, Fidelio. The extremes of musical expression in Beethoven’s music pushed the boundaries in the late Classical period and inspired generations of Romantic composers.

CLASSICAL

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770- 1827)

1750s A reform movement, led by Christoph Gluck (1714-1787), rejected the flashy, ornamented style of the Baroque in favor of simple, refined music to enhance the drama.

1767 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote his first opera at age 11, beginning his 25-year opera career. Mozart mastered, then innovated in several operatic forms. He wrote opera serias, including La clemenza di Tito, and opera buffas (comedic operas) like Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). He then combined the two genres in Don Giovanni, calling it dramma giocoso (comedic drama). Mozart also innovated the Singspiel (German sung play), featuring a spoken dialogue, as in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756- 1791)

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THE HISTORY OF OPERA

1853 Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) completed La Traviata, a story of love, loss, and the struggle of average people, in the increasingly popular realistic style of verismo. Verdi enjoyed immense acclaim during his lifetime, while expanding opera to include larger orchestras, extravagant sets and costumes, and more highly trained voices.

ROMANTIC

THE GOLDEN AGE OF OPERA

Giuseppe Verdi

1816

1842

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) composed Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), becoming the most prodigious opera composer in Italy by age 24. He wrote 39 operas in 20 years. A new compositional style created by Rossini and his contemporaries, including Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini, would, a century later, be referred to as bel canto (beautiful singing). Bel canto compositions were inspired by the nuanced vocal capabilities of the human voice and its expressive potential. Composers employed strategic use of register, the push and pull of tempo (rubato), extremely smooth and connected phrases (legato), and vocal glides (portamento).

Inspired by the risqué popular entertainment of French vaudeville, Hervé created the first operetta, a short comedic musical drama with spoken dialogue. Responding to popular trends, this new form stood in contrast to the increasingly serious and dramatic works at the grand Parisian opera house. Opéra comique as a genre was often not comic, rather realistic or humanistic. Grand Opera, on the contrary, was exaggerated and melodramatic.

A scene from 19th-century version of the play The Barber of Seville

by Pierre Beaumarchais. Its origins in the commedia dell’arte are shown in this picture which portrays Figaro dressed in the costume and mask of Harlequin.

1884, via Wikimedia Commons

THE HISTORY OF OPERA

39

1896 Giacomo Puccini’s (1858-1924) La bohème captivated audiences with its intensely beautiful music, realism, and raw emotion. Puccini enjoyed huge acclaim during his lifetime for his works.

1871 Influenced by French operetta, English librettist W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) began their 25-year partnership, which produced 14 comic operettas including The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.

Their works inspired the genre of American musical theater.

Giacomo Puccini

1865

1874

Richard Wagner’s (1813-1883) Tristan und Isolde was the beginning of musical Modernism, pushing the use of traditional harmony to its extreme. His massively ambitious, lengthy operas, often based in German folklore, sought to synthesize music, theater, poetry, and visuals in what he called a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). The most famous of these was an epic four-opera drama, Der Ring des Nibelungen, which took him 26 years to write and was completed in 1874.

Johann Strauss II, influenced largely by his father, with whom he shared a name and talent, composed Die Fledermaus.

This opera popularized Viennese musical traditions, namely the waltz, and shaped German operetta.

Richard Wagner Mikado theatre poster, Edinburgh, 1885, via Wikimedia Commons 40

THE HISTORY OF OPERA

1922

20th CENTURY

Alban Berg (1885-1935) composed the first completely atonal opera, Wozzeck, dealing with uncomfortable themes of militarism and social exploitation. Wozzeck is in the style of 12-tone music or Serialism. This new compositional style, developed in Vienna by composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), placed equal importance on each of the 12 pitches in a scale, removing the sense of the music being in a particular key.

1911

1927

Scott Joplin, “The King of Ragtime,” wrote his only opera, Treemonisha, which was not performed until 1972. The work combined the European late-Romantic operatic style with African American folk songs, spirituals, and dances. The libretto, also by Joplin, was written at a time when literacy among African Americans in the southern United States was rare.

American musical theater, commonly referred to as Broadway, was taken more seriously after Jerome Kern’s (18851945) Show Boat, words by Oscar Hammerstein, tackled issues of racial segregation and the ban on interracial marriage in Mississippi.

Hammerstein and Kern Scott Joplin

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1935 American composer George Gershwin (1898-1937), who was influenced by African American music and culture, debuted his opera, Porgy and Bess, in Boston, MA with an all African American cast of classically trained singers.

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Porgy and Bess by the New York Harlem Theatre, 2009

1945

1957

British composer Benjamin Britten (19131976) gained international recognition with his opera Peter Grimes. Britten, along with Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), was one of the first British opera composers to gain fame in nearly 300 years.

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), known for synthesizing musical genres, brought together the best of American musical theater, opera, and ballet in West Side Story—a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet in a contemporary setting.

Benjamin Britten

Leonard Bernstein

1987 John Adams (b. 1947) composed one of the great minimalist operas, Nixon in China, the story of Nixon’s 1972 meeting with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Musical Minimalism strips music down to its essential elements, usually featuring a great deal of repetition with slight variations.

John Adams

TODAY Still a vibrant, evolving art form, opera attracts contemporary composers such as: Philip Glass (b. 1937), Mark-Anthony Turnage (b. 1960), Jake Heggie (b. 1961), Thomas Adès (b. 1971), and many others.

These composers continue to be influenced by present and historical musical forms in creating new operas that explore current issues or reimagine ancient tales.

BLO’s production of Philip Glass’ opera, In the Penal Colony.

Photo: T. Charles Erickson

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THE SCIENCE AND ART OF OPERA

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THE SCIENCE AND ART OF OPERA

WHY DO OPERA SINGERS SOUND LIKE THAT?

So Young Park as Queen of the Night Photo: Eric Antoniou

Opera is unique among forms of singing in that singers are trained to be able to sing without amplification, in large theaters, over an entire orchestra, and still be heard and understood! This is what sets the art form of opera apart from similar forms such as musical theater.

To become a professional opera singer, it takes years of intense physical training and constant practice— not unlike that of a ballet dancer—to stay in shape.

Additionally, while ballet dancers can dance through pain and illness, poor health, especially respiratory issues and even allergies, can be severely debilitating for a professional opera singer. Let’s peek into some of the science of this art form.

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How the Voice Works Singing requires different parts of the body to work together: the lungs, the vocal cords, the vocal tract, and the articulators (lips, teeth, and tongue). The lungs create a flow of air over the vocal cords, which vibrate. That vibration is amplified by the vocal tract and broken up into words by consonants produced by the articulators.

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BREATH

Any good singer will tell you that good breath support is essential to produce quality sound. Breath is like the gas that goes into your car.

Without it, nothing runs. In order to sing long phrases of music with clarity and volume, opera singers access their full lung capacity by keeping their torso elongated and releasing the lower abdomen and diaphragm muscles, which allows air to enter into the lower lobes of the lungs. This is why we associate a certain posture with opera singers. In the past, many operas were staged with singers standing in one place to deliver an entire aria or scene, with minimal activity.

Modern productions, however, often demand a much greater range of movement and agility onstage, requiring performers to be physically fit, and disproving the stereotype of the “fat lady sings.”

VIBRATION

If you run your fingers along your throat you will feel a little lump just underneath your chin. That is your “Adam’s Apple,” and right behind it, housed in the larynx (voice-box), are your vocal cords.

When air from the lungs crosses over the vocal cords, it creates an area of low pressure (Google The Bernoulli Effect), which brings the cords together and makes them vibrate. This vibration produces a buzz. The vocal cords can be lengthened or shortened by muscles in the larynx, or by increasing the speed of airflow.

This change in the length and thickness of the vocal cords is what allows singers to create different pitches. Higher pitches require long, thin cords, while low pitches require short, thick ones. Professional singers take great pains to protect the delicate anatomy of their vocal cords with hydration and rest, as the tiniest scarring or inflammation can have noticeable effects on the quality of sound produced.

THE SCIENCE AND ART OF OPERA

RESONANCE

Without the resonating chambers in the head, the buzzing of the vocal cords would sound very unpleasant. The vocal tract, a term encompassing the mouth cavity, and the back of the throat, down to the larynx, shapes the buzzing of the vocal cords like a sculptor shapes clay. Shape your mouth in an ee vowel (as in eat), and then sharply inhale a few times. The cool sensation you feel at the top and back of your mouth is your soft palate.

The soft palate can raise or lower to change the shape of the vocal tract. Opera singers always strive to sing with a raised soft palate, which allows for the greatest amplification of the sound produced by the vocal cords. Different vowel sounds are produced by raising or lowering the tongue. Say the vowels: ee, eh, ah, oh, oo and notice how each vowel requires a slightly lower tongue placement. This area of vocal training is particularly difficult because none of the anatomy is visible from the outside!

ARTICULATION

The lips, teeth, and tongue are all used to create consonant sounds, which separate words into syllables and make language intelligible. Consonants must be clear and audible for the singer to be understood. Because opera singers do not sing with amplification, their articulation must be particularly good.

The challenge lies in producing crisp, rapid consonants without interrupting the connection of the vowels (through the controlled exhale of breath) within the musical phrase.

Perfecting every element of this complex singing system requires years of training, and is essential for the demands of the art form. An opera singer must be capable of singing for hours at a time, over the top of an orchestra, in large opera houses, while acting and delivering an artistic interpretation of the music. It is complete and total engagement of mental, physical, and emotional control and expression. Therefore, think of opera singers as the Olympic athletes of the stage, sit back, and marvel at what the human body is capable of!

Different Voice Types

C B C B Soprano MezzoSoprano

C B

Bass The lowest male voice, basses often fall into two main categories: basso buffo, which is a comic character who often sings in lower laughing-like tones, and basso profundo, which is as low as the human voice can sing! Doctor Bartolo is an example of a bass role in The Barber of Seville by Rossini.

Contralto Tenor

C B

Baritone Bass

C

D

E

F

G

A

110HZ

D

E

F

G

A

220HZ

D

E

F

G

A

440HZ

D

E

F

G

A

880HZ

D

E

F

Opera singers are cast into roles based on their tessitura (the range of notes they can sing comfortably). There are many descriptors that accompany the basic voice types, but here are some of the most common ones:

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Baritone A middle-range male voice, baritones can range from sweet and mild in tone, to darker dramatic and full tones. A famous baritone role is Rigoletto in Verdi’s Rigoletto.

Baritones who are most comfortable in a slightly lower range are known as Bass-Baritones, a hybrid of the two lowest voice types.

Tenor The highest male voice, tenors often sing the role of the hero.

One of the most famous tenor roles is Roméo in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliet. Occasionally men have cultivated very high voices singing in a range similar to a mezzo-soprano, but using their falsetto. Called the Countertenor, this voice type is often found in Baroque music. Countertenors replaced castrati in the heroic lead roles of Baroque opera after the practice of castration was deemed unethical.

Each of the voice types (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass) also tends to be sub-characterized by whether it is more Lyric or Dramatic in tone. Lyric singers tend toward smooth lines in their music, sensitively expressed interpretation, and flexible agility. Dramatic singers have qualities that are attributed to darker, fuller, richer note qualities expressed powerfully and robustly with strong emotion. While it’s easiest to understand operatic voice types through these designations and descriptions, one of the most exciting things about listening to a singer perform is that each individual’s voice is unique, therefore each singer will interpret a role in an opera in a slightly different way.

Contralto Occasionally women have an even lower range that overlaps with the highest male voice.

This voice type is more rare and they often play male characters, referred to in opera as trouser roles.

Mezzo-Soprano Somewhat equivalent to the lower female alto role in a chorus, mezzo-sopranos (mezzo translated as “middle”) are known for their full and expressive qualities.

While they don’t sing frequencies quite as high as sopranos, their ranges do overlap, and it is a “darker” tone that sets them apart.

One of the most famous mezzo-soprano lead roles is Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen.

Soprano The highest female voice.

Some sopranos are designated as coloratura as they specialize in being able to sing very fast moving notes that are very high in frequency and light in tone, often referred to as “color notes.” One of the most famous coloratura roles is The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

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THE PHYSICS OF OPERA SINGERS What is it about opera singers that allows them to be heard above the orchestra? It’s not that they are simply singing louder. The qualities of sound have to do with the relationship between the frequency (pitch) of a sound, represented in a unit of measurement called hertz, and its amplitude, measured in decibels, which the ear perceives as loudness. Only artificially produced sounds, however, create a pure frequency and amplitude (these are the only kinds that can break glass). The sound produced by a violin, a drum, a voice, or even smacking your hand on a table, produces a fundamental frequency as well as secondary, tertiary, etc. frequencies known as overtones, or as musicians call them, harmonics.

For instance, the orchestra tunes to a concert “A” pitch before a performance. Concert “A” has a frequency of about 440 hertz, but that is not the only pitch you will hear. Progressively softer pitches above that fundamental pitch are produced in multiples of 440 at 880hz, 1320hz, 1760hz, etc.

Each different instrument in the orchestra, because of its shape, construction, and mode in which it produces sound, produces different harmonics. This is what makes a violin, for example, have a different color (or timbre) from a trumpet. Generally, the harmonics of the instruments in the orchestra fade around 2500hz. Overtones produced by a human voice—whether speaking, yelling, or singing—are referred to as formants.

As the demands of opera stars increased, vocal teachers discovered that by manipulating the empty space within the vocal tract, they could emphasize higher frequencies within the overtone series—frequencies above 2500hz. This technique allowed singers to perform without hurting their vocal chords, as they are not actually singing at a higher fundamental decibel level than the orchestra.

Swedish voice scientist, Johann Sundberg, observed this phenomenon when he recorded the worldfamous tenor Jussi Bjoerling in 1970. His research showed multiple peaks in decibel level, with the strongest frequency (overtone) falling between 2500 and 3000 hertz. This frequency, known as the singer’s formant, is the “sweet spot” for singers so that we hear their voices soaring over the orchestra into the opera house night after night.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbiQbKQhVrQ Prof. Tecumseh Fitch, evolutionary biologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna, explains the difference between a fundamental frequency and formant frequency in the human voice.

For an opera singer, the lower two formants (peaks on a graph) determine the specific vowel sound. The third formant and above add overtones that are specific to each particular singers’ voice, like a fingerprint. When two people sing the same note simultaneously, the high overtones allow your ear to distinguish two voices

A RESONANT PLACE The final piece of the puzzle in creating the perfect operatic sound is the opera house or theater itself. Designing the perfect acoustical space can be an almost impossible task, one which requires tremendous knowledge of science, engineering, and architecture, as well as an artistic sensibility. The goal of the acoustician is to make sure that everyone in the audience can clearly understand the music being produced onstage, no matter where they are sitting. A perfectly designed opera house or concert hall (for non-amplified sound) functions almost like gigantic musical instrument.

Boston Opera House – photo by John Wolf

Boston Symphony Hall, opened in 1900, with acoustical design

by Harvard physicist Wallace Clement Sabine, was the first concert hall to be designed with scientific acoustic principles in mind.

Each seat was mathematically designed and placed for maximum acoustical perfection.

Reverberation is one key aspect in making a singer’s words intelligible or an orchestra’s melody clear. Imagine the sound your voice would make in the shower or a cave. The echo you hear is reverberation caused by the large, hard, smooth surfaces. Too much reverberation (bouncing sound waves) can make words difficult to understand.

Resonant vowel sounds overlap as they bounce off of hard surfaces and cover up quieter consonant sounds. In these environments, sound carries a long way but becomes unclear or, as it is sometimes called, wet as if the sound were underwater.

Acousticians can mitigate these effects by covering smooth surfaces with textured materials like fabric, perforated metal, or diffusers, which absorb and disperse sound. These tools, however, must be used carefully, as too much absorption can make a space dry – meaning the sound onstage will not carry at all and the performers may have trouble even hearing themselves as they perform. Imagine singing into a pillow or under a blanket.

The shape of the room itself also contributes to the way the audience perceives the music. Most large performance spaces are shaped like a bell – small where the stage is, and growing larger and more spread out in every dimension as one moves farther away. This shape helps to create a clear path for the sound to every seat. In designing concert halls or opera houses, big decisions must be made about the construction of the building based on acoustical needs. Even with the best planning, the perfect acoustic is not guaranteed, but professionals are constantly learning and adapting new scientific knowledge to enhance the audience’s experience.

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NOTES TO PREPARE FOR THE OPERA You will see a full dress rehearsal – an insider’s look into the final moments of preparation before an opera premieres. The singers will be in full costume and makeup, the opera will be fully staged, and an orchestra will accompany the singers, who may choose to “mark,” or not sing in full voice, to save their voices for the performances. A final dress rehearsal is often a complete run-through, but there is a chance the director or conductor will ask to repeat a scene or section of music. This is the last opportunity the performers have to rehearse with the orchestra before opening night, and they therefore need this valuable time to work.

The following will help you better enjoy your experience of a night at the opera:

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NOTES TO PREPARE FOR THE OPERA

OPERA CHECKLIST Arrive on time! Latecomers will be seated only at suitable breaks in the performance and often not until intermission.

Dress in what you are comfortable in so that you may enjoy the performance. For some, that means dressing up in a suit or gown, for others, jeans and a polo shirt fit the bill.

Generally “dressy-casual” is what people wear. Live theater is usually a little more formal than a movie theater. Please do not take off your shoes or put your feet on the seat in front of you.

Respect your fellow opera lovers by not leaning forward in your seat so as to block the person’s view behind you, and by turning off (not on vibrate) cell phones and other electronic devices that could make noise during the performance. Lit screens are also very distracting to your neighbors, so please keep your phone out of sight until the house lights come up.

Taking photos or making audio or video recordings is strictly forbidden.

Do not chew gum, eat, drink, or talk while the rehearsal is in session. If you must visit the restroom during the performance, please exit quickly and quietly.

At the very beginning of the opera, the concertmaster of the orchestra will ask the oboist to play the note “A.” You will hear all the other musicians in the orchestra tune their instruments to match the oboe’s “A.” After all the instruments have been tuned, the conductor will arrive. Be sure to applaud!

Feel free to applaud or shout Bravo at the end of an aria or chorus piece if you liked it. The end of a piece can be identified by a pause in the music. Singers love an appreciative audience!

It’s OK to laugh when something is funny!

When translating songs and poetry in particular, much can be lost due to a change in rhythm, inflection and rhyme of words. For this reason, opera is usually performed in its original language. In order to help audiences enjoy the music and follow every twist and turn of the plot, English supertitles are projected.

Listen for subtleties in the music. The tempo, volume, and complexity of the music and singing depict the feelings or actions of the characters. Also, notice repeated words or phrases; they are usually significant.

Sit back, relax and let the action on stage pull you in. As an audience member, you are essential to the art form of opera—without you, there is no show!

Have Fun and Enjoy the Opera!