‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’ @ Dallas Symphony Orchestra
—Wayne Lee Gay
Long established as a leading figure in the world of jazz and film music, Terence Blanchard, now 59, has in the past decade enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence as a composer of opera. In 2021, his second opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, became the first opera by a Black composer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera; his earlier opera Champion is part of that company's 2022-23 season. Thus, Blanchard is currently the only composer alive today who has had two operas performed by the Met.
Neither of Blanchard's operas have been staged in the North Texas region, but area opera lovers had a chance to hear a live performance of at least a segment of his operatic output Wednesday night (February 8), when excerpts from Fire Shut Up in My Bones were presented in a non-subscription classical concert by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra's resident assistant conductor Maurice Cohn conducted, with soprano Karen Slack and bass-baritone Nicholas Newton as soloists—and the composer was present to receive an enthusiastic ovation.
The thirty-minute abridged concert version revealed a lyrical, emotional, and harmonic vocabulary akin to the neo-romantic scores of Samuel Barber—albeit with occasional flourishes of jazz instrumental styles, with jazz percussion and electric guitar adding dashes of spice to the proceedings.
Based on The New York Times columnist Charles Blow's autobiography of the same name, Fire Shut Up in My Bones is, even in these excerpts, a heart-rending revelation of Blow's childhood traumas of poverty, neglect, and sexual abuse. That Blow, as a young man, at one point intended to murder his childhood assailant is revealed early on (no spoiler here); the tone of anger comes across immediately in dense orchestration and dissonance. (This may have been the first time that the invective "mother fucker" has been sung from the stage of the Meyerson Symphony Center.)
There is, however, plenty of lyricism in the excerpts—and presumably in the entire opera—as well as beautiful moments of reflection, hope, and romantic longing. In the role of Charles, bass-baritone Newton combined power and beauty in key moments. A graduate of Rice University with an international career underway, Newton appeared as Monterone in The Dallas Opera's production of Verdi's Rigoletto. Soprano Slack, who performed the role of Charles's mother in the premiere production of Fire Shut Up in My Bones in 2019, sang portions of that and two other roles in this concert version. She ranged with ease, dramatically and vocally, from overworked working woman to college girlfriend to an invisible force of destiny. As further evidence of her dramatic versatility, Slack heads from the Meyerson to the Winspear Opera House this week—to sing the role of the goddess Freia in The Dallas Opera's production of Wagner's Das Rheingold.
Conductor Cohn commanded the assembled forces admirably; it could be either miscalculated orchestration on the part of the composer or misjudged balance by the conductor that permitted the orchestra to very occasionally overpower the singers.
Cohn further demonstrated a precise but expressive presence in the first half of the concert. The evening opened with the second movement (Andante Moderato) from the String Quartet in G by Florence Price, an early-twentieth-century African American composer. Here presented in a version for full string orchestra, this melodic work combines elements of the genteel tradition with hints of African American spirituals, energized with a calmly compelling forward impetus.
To round out this Black History Month concert, conductor Cohn and the orchestra then explored another side of the American and African American musical tradition in the form of Duke Ellington's orchestral tone poem Harlem. Epic and jazzy at the same time, Harlem evokes the energy, aspiration, and artistic flame ignited in Manhattan's Black community in the early and middle years of the twentieth century.
WEB: For information on upcoming events, check the calendar at dallassymphony.org
