Speaking from his home in Atlanta, Blow notes that you have to look at the significance of the Met production in two ways. "And I started thinking about a lot of the struggles some of my dearest friends who are black gay males have gone through, and what it was like for them to grow, and find their sexuality, and be comfortable in their sexuality."īlow, the real-life subject of Fire Shut Up in My Bones," now works as a staff writer and op-ed columnist for The New York Times. "I tried to think what was my entry point into the work," she says. Brown co-directed and choreographed the show, and is the first Black director to helm a mainstage Met production. Brown (left) leads members of the ensemble of Fire Shut Up in My Bones in a movement workshop.Ĭamille A. So you always have to fine tune things for the vocalists that you're working with."Ĭo-director and choreographer Camille A.
You got it.' This, no: One baritone is so different from the next baritone, one tenor is different from another.
When you write for a quintet, you go, 'Okay, I know what the tenor does, I know what the trumpet does, the bass. "It's not like writing for an orchestra, or writing for a band. "The operatic voice is so unique, each voice," he says.
Still, Blanchard says opera presents a unique challenge. There's a jazz quartet embedded into the Met Orchestra for the opera, but much of the music sounds more like Blanchard's work in Hollywood, where he has written the music for more than 40 films. "I'm trying to take American folklore that I know, that I've experienced, which is jazz," he says, "and bring that into the operatic world, but not totally use the entire piece to make a statement about jazz." Rather, he calls it "an opera in Jazz." What he means to do, he explains, is similar to what Stravinsky did in bringing folkloric music into the classical realm. Blanchard is a jazz composer, but he says Fire Shut Up in My Bones is not a jazz opera.
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