Lyric Opera 2021-2022 Issue 7 Fire Shut Up My Bones

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 11 Beginning with the 2019/20 season, Freud announced a bold initiative: to stage a contemporary, English-language opera on the mainstage every season. Dead Man Walking (2000), an adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean’s account of one man’s passage through death row, was the first. George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence (2018) succumbed to pandemic cancellations, making Fire the second installment to reach the stage. Audiences see their worlds echoed in the new work. “I want the subject matters of operas in this series to resonate powerfully with contemporary communities,” Freud said during the run-up to the Lyric performances of Dead Man Walking . Just as Mozart’s contemporaries would see as relevant and topical the anti-aristocracy revolutionary attitudes underpinning The Marriage of Figaro , so too do we see the death penalty, the abuse of political power, or issues of sexuality today. Behind the jazz, choreography, and flashbacks in Fire resides the classic operatic framework of the Bildungsroman —a story dealing with one person’s identity and development. Fire depicts recognizably modern-day characters, traveling through lives close to our own in time and space. The main character is based not only on a recognizable person, but one who is also still alive: Charles M. Blow, The New York Times columnist whose memoir provided the source material for the opera. “How often do we get a chance as performers to tell stories about people who are still with us?” says Will Liverman, the baritone who plays Charles. Photo: Ken Howard Photo: Todd Rosenberg Bel Canto Dead Man Walking