Met season to open with first-ever opera by Black composer

By MIKE SILVERMAN
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The Met Opera’s season opens on Monday, and for the first time in its 138-year history it will perform an opera by a Black composer. The staging of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” will be an awakening in other ways too for the Met, which hasn’t staged an opera performance in its house in 18 months. “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is by jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard based on the memoir of New York Times columnist Charles Blow. Blow says he plans to attend Monday’s show. Blanchard says while he’s proud to be the first Black composer chosen for the Met, he’s saddened that other Black artists didn’t get the chance first.