This year (2023) Terence Blanchard's opera Champion, about a gay boxing champion who faces a homophobe in the ring in 1962, opened at the Met in New York City.
Terence Blanchard's opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones, about a 'Black' man like Terence himself turning to God to overcome abuse, premiered a few years ago.
Part of me reacts, no, not another field giving in to pressure to be edgy and dark like CSI.
And then I catch myself.
This is Opera.
Rigoletto.
Tosca.
This is the tradition of Verdi, of Verismo.
This kind of dark, edgy drama is opera's bread and butter.
This is exactly the kind of subject that Verdi and Puccini and the great Verismo composers wrote about, to say nothing of Carmen.
Dark psychological torment and triumph, like Tosca facing Scarpia, like Aida and her father clashing terribly in Verdi's Aida.
Bring it on!
Bring on a modern, 'Black' version in Opera of the dark, edgy drama that Verdi and his successors did so well, that they learned from William Shakespeare!
This is classic Opera renewed and reimagined for the 21st Century!
This is the future of Opera!
And when Opera does subjects like this, you can bet that they do it well, and you can bet that they take a long, thoughtful look at all that the subject matter brings up!
Including light in the face of the darkness!
This is what shows like CSI were trying to do all this time!
Write 20 episodes a year, and it can never be done this way!
Put it in a movie like Everything Everywhere All at Once, put it in a single work that you can work on for years if necessary, like an Opera, and you get something like Aida!
This is the renewal of opera!
For stories like this are opera's bread and butter, now renewed for the 21st Century!
This is the future of opera!
Keep it going!
God loves you! Thank you for the opera!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson