What you need to know about Blanchard and Cristofer’s Champion
The music of Terence Blanchard returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago with his first opera, an “opera in jazz” inspired by the true story of boxer Emile Griffith, in a production that marks Music Director Enrique Mazzola’s first foray into contemporary music at Lyric.
January 27 – February 11, 2024
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, 2024. 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 Terence Blanchard, whose Fire Shut Up in My Bones was a smash hit in Lyric’s 2021/22 Season, 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 Michael 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, Enrique Mazzola leads the esteemed Lyric Opera Orchestra through a series of momentous firsts. Earlier this season, he conducted his first Wagner opera at Lyric with an enthusiastically received The Flying Dutchman. This production of Champion will mark his first contemporary work at Lyric. Mazzola will finish Lyric’s opera season with his first-ever production of Verdi’s Aida, which also marks the 100th opera of his global conducting career. In a final “first” of the 2023/24 Season, he will conduct Mozart’s Requiem, his first Mozart for Lyric audiences. This diverse season allows Mazzola to showcase his broad repertoire and the Orchestra to display its mastery of a variety of musical styles.
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 in Lyric’s 2021/22 Season, 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; later this season, he returns to Lyric as Amonasro in Aida. The rising star Justin Austin, who jumped into several performances as the central character Charles in Fire Shut Up in My Bones in Lyric’s 2021/22 Season, sings the role of Young Emile. Austin is the 2023 winner of the Kennedy Center’s Marian Anderson Vocal Award. Born in Germany to professional opera singer parents, he began his singing career as a boy soprano performing all over the world. 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 four alumni and one current member of the Ensemble performing in the opera. Whitney Morrison is Emelda Griffith, Emile’s estranged mother. Morrison portrayed the unforgettable Yasmine Miller in the world premiere Proximity in Lyric’s 2022/23 Season; she also recently served as Lyric’s first-ever Artist in Residence. Martin Luther Clark, who starred in Lyric’s world premiere The Factotum in the 2022/23 Season, is Luis Rodrigo Griffith, Emile’s adopted son and caregiver. Leroy Davis, who also starred in Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones in Lyric’s 2021/22 Season, is Emile’s rival Benny “Kid” Paret and also performs the role of Benny Paret, Jr. Meredith Arwady is the riotously bawdy Kathy Hagen, the impresario of Hagen’s Hole, the gay bar where Emile mixes with drag queens and has an impactful encounter with the Man in Bar, portrayed by current Ryan Opera Center Ensemble member Ian Rucker.
A strong corner with Champion’s supporting cast. The rest of Champion’s cast includes artists returning to the Lyric stage. Paul Groves sings the role of Howie Albert, the manager who makes Griffith into a fighter and runs his career. Meroë Khalia Adeeb is Sadie Donastorg Griffith, Krysty Swann is Cousin Blanche, Emily Mwila is Lucia Paret, and Cameo T. Humes is Mano Alfaro. Legendary Chicago actor Larry Yando makes his Lyric debut as the Ring Announcer.
A creative team that goes the distance. Champion is directed by James Robinson, who directed the opera at its world premiere at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2013, at Washington National Opera in 2017, and again in its revised version, in a co-production with Lyric, at the Metropolitan Opera in April 2023. Robinson previously co-directed Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones in Lyric’s 2021/22 Season. The production team for Champion includes set designer Allen Moyer, costume designer Montana Levi Blanco (a recent Tony Award winner for The Skin of Our Teeth) in his Lyric debut, two-time Tony Award-winning lighting designer Donald Holder, and projection designer Greg Emetaz.
Bobbing and weaving — in style Choreographer Camille A. Brown returns to Lyric following her debut as co-director and choreographer of the 2021/22 Season’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, for which she created unforgettable dance sequences that drove the story of the opera forward. Brown’s 14 dancers will do similar storytelling work in Champion. Boxing consultant David Ortiz, Jr., co-owner of Logan Square’s Barracks Boxing Club, will help bring authenticity to the opera’s many boxing scenes. More than 40 artists, including members of the Lyric Opera Chorus, take the stage in various guises as factory workers, boxers, drag queens, and more.
Special events take a deeper dive into Champion’s creation and themes.
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, 2024, 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 and open to the public with advance registration coming soon to lyricopera.org/champion; registration is not required for ticket holders to that day’s performance of Champion.
One of Champion‘s central themes is the evolution of the sexuality of its central character, Emile Griffith. Emile finds support in New York’s gay bars and community among its drag queens. Lyric has partnered with the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s comprehensive community center for LGBTQIA+ people, for a special event exploring drag in opera. The world’s first (and only) drag queen with a Ph.D. in musicology, Dr. Lady J will present a lecture — Castrated Superstars, Cross-Dressed Divas, and Queer Lovers: A History of Drag in Opera — on Thursday, February 8, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the Center’s Hoover-Leppen Theatre at 3656 North Halsted Street. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and a light reception will follow. More information will be available soon at lyricopera.org/champion.
A unanimous decision. Over the past several seasons, Lyric has strengthened its longtime commitment to creating and fostering new work, making it a significant hallmark of the company’s identity. These investments advance the art form itself, such as the 2022/23 Season’s world premieres The Factotum and Proximity, and support Lyric’s ongoing mission to diversify both the stories it tells and the range of artists it engages to tell them. Champion is just the latest opera that is part of this ongoing commitment, using an accessible story set in the world of sports that addresses broader themes of race and sexuality and asks audiences to consider what makes a man a man. Champion is the knockout opera of the season.
In this corner…
- Six chances to see Champion: January 27, 31 matinee, February 3, 6, 9, and 11 matinee, 2024.
- A running time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, including one intermission.
- Sung in English, with projected English titles above the stage.
- Champion addresses adult themes and includes adult language.
- Audio description, a guided touch tour of the set, American Sign Language interpretation, and SoundShirts are available at the Wednesday, January 31 matinee performance; American Sign Language interpretation and SoundShirts are available at the Saturday, February 3 performance. For more information, visit org/accessibility.
- Commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Originally commissioned by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, co-commissioned by Jazz St. Louis. A co-production of Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera.
More information and tickets: visit lyricopera.org/champion or call 312.827.5600.
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