Opening Night of the 2021–22 season will be a historic
occasion—the Met's first performance of an opera by a Black composer. Yannick
Nézet-Séguin conducts Grammy Award–winning jazz musician and composer Terence
Blanchard’s adaptation of Charles M. Blow’s moving memoir, which The New
York Times praised after its 2019 world premiere at Opera Theatre of Saint
Louis as “bold and affecting” and “subtly powerful.” Featuring a libretto by
filmmaker Kasi Lemmons, the opera tells a poignant and profound story about a
young man’s journey to overcome a life of trauma and hardship. James Robinson
and Camille A. Brown—two of the creators of the Met’s sensational recent
production of Porgy and Bess—co-direct this new staging; Brown, who is
also the production’s choreographer, becomes the first Black director to create
a mainstage Met production. Baritone Will Liverman, one of opera’s most
exciting young artists, stars as Charles, alongside soprano Angel Blue as
Destiny/Loneliness/Greta, soprano Latonia Moore as Billie, and Walter Russell
III as Char’es-Baby.