NEW YORK – After an 18-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and protracted labor disputes with its musicians and crew, the Metropolitan Opera reopened Monday with a history-making debut — the first work by a Black composer.
“Fire Shut Up In My Bones,” a poignant opera centered on the tension of growing up a Black man in the American South, was composed by Terence Blanchard, a top-tier jazz trumpeter and Spike Lee’s go-to film score master for three decades.
When the premier US opera company in 2019 first announced its forthcoming staging, it was unclear when exactly “Fire” would come to Manhattan.
But the months of Black Lives Matter protests that reverberated nationwide and beyond over…
