Champion

When Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones opened the Met’s 2021–22 season to universal acclaim, it marked a historic moment in the annals of the company. Now, the six-time Grammy Award–winning composer’s operatic retelling of the dramatic story of boxer Emile Griffith arrives in New York. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green stars as the closeted young hatmaker-turned-prizefighter, who rises from obscurity to become world champion and, in one of the great tragedies in sports history, kills his homophobic archrival in the ring. Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a stellar cast that also features bass-baritone Eric Owens as Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, alongside mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as bar owner Kathy Hagen. Director James Robinson—whose productions of Fire and Porgy and Bess brought down the house—oversees the staging, and Camille A. Brown, whose choreography electrified audiences in Fire and Porgy, also returns. 

This production uses strobe-light effects.

For information on talks and events related to Champion, please visit the Upcoming Talks and Events web page

Content Advisory: Champion contains adult themes, sexually explicit language, and physical violence.

An opera by Terence Blanchard
Libretto by Michael Cristofer

Commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Originally commissioned by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, co-commissioned by Jazz St. Louis.

A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago

Production a gift of C. Graham Berwind, III and Lynne and Richard Pasculano

Additional funding from the Edgar Foster Daniels Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Francis Goelet Trusts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and Ann Ziff