What Makes a Man a Man

At the Met Opera, Terence Blanchard's 'Champion' scrambles all the signals

Eric Owens as Emile Griffith and Ryan Speedo Green as Young Emile Griffith in Terence Blanchard’s ‘Champion.’ Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Two principal cast members of Terence Blanchard’s Champion clasped in a bear hug during curtain call at the Metropolitan Opera on opening night, and the moment brought a catch to my throat. The singers were Eric Owens and Ryan Speedo Green — both bass-baritones, both spectacular, both in the role of boxer Emile Griffith, at different coordinates in his life map. Across the opera’s three-hour fever dream, they surface separately, and also as time-warped twins, and sometimes in the presence of yet another Emile, played by the poised child performer Ethan Joseph. What made their embrace so emotionally wrenching was the knowledge that this simple, affirming gesture would have meant so much to the characters they play in the opera, which is to say the two distinct yet hopelessly linked manifestations of a man.

Champion — Blanchard’s first full opera, which premiered at Opera Theatre St. Louis a decade ago — is “about” a number of things, but chief among them is this search for self-identity, in the face of overwhelming trauma, guilt and inner turmoil. If you haven’t heard or read anything about the work, it tells the story of Griffith, a heralded prizefighter who lived as a bisexual Black man, and whose most famous bout ended with his opponent, Benny Paret, in a coma and ultimately in the ground. This all happened in 1962. It was broadcast in prime time on ABC’s “Friday Night Fights,” and thereafter enshrined as a tragic footnote in the rugged arc of American pugilism.

Paret had openly mocked Griffith at their weigh-in with a homophobic slur, giving the fatal outcome a retributive mythos. In this production, Act I culminates in the fight, brilliantly choreographed in a boxing ring that serves as a stage within a stage. Blanchard’s score, merging the Met Orchestra with an all-star jazz rhythm section, assumes a frenzied crescendo in slanted 5/4 meter — an orgy of ripe kinetic bombast. On Monday night, feeling the queasy mix of excitement and horror that Blanchard surely intended to evoke, I wondered aloud as the house lights went up: How do you follow a climax as thrilling as that? What could Act II possibly do to measure up?

Eric Owens (top) as Emile Griffith, Eric Greene as Benny Paret, Ryan Speedo Green as Young Emile Griffith, Latonia Moore as Emelda Griffith, and Stephanie Blythe as Kathy Hagen in ‘Champion.’ Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera