Opening Night of the Met’s 2021–22 season was a doubly historic event. Not only was it the return of live opera following an extended closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also marked the first performance of a work by a Black composer to be presented by the Met. An adaptation of Charles M. Blow’s harrowing memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is the second opera from six-time Grammy Award–winner Terence Blanchard and follows the young Charles as he navigates adolescence and struggles to overcome a life of trauma. In this performance, recorded as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts an electrifying production co-directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Brown, who also created the staging’s vivid choreography. Baritone Will Liverman gives a breakout performance as Charles, starring alongside soprano Latonia Moore as his mother, Billie; soprano Angel Blue, who portrays the forces of Destiny and Loneliness, as well as Charles’s college sweetheart, Greta; and rising young star Walter Russell III as Charles’s childhood self, Char’es-Baby. Content Advisory: Fire Shut Up in My Bones addresses adult themes and contains adult language.
