(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Reviews are starting to come in for Detroit Opera production of Central Park Five [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-17
In 1989, Trisha Meili was jogging in Central Park when she was horrifically assaulted, she was beaten and raped so badly that she was in a coma for two weeks. Any decent person would have wanted the perpetrators properly apprehended, convicted and punished.
Five young men were arrested, and they confessed to the crime. They were quite young: the oldest, Korey Wise, was 16, and the youngest, Raymond Santana, was 14. The other three, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson and Yusef Salaam were all 15-year-olds.
They were forced to confess to a crime they did not commit, and spent too many years in prison before the real, lone perpetrator was apprehended and convicted on DNA evidence. The Central Park Five were released and later awarded a $41 million settlement.
When these young men’s ordeal started, opera composer Anthony Davis had already written and seen his opera about Malcolm X produced at least twice. I’m curious to know when Davis first thought of writing an opera about the Central Park Five.
It wasn’t until 2019 that his opera, The Central Park Five, was premiered by the Long Beach Opera, who commissioned the work. The opera has been published by Schott, the same publisher who first published Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Last week the opera had its Michigan premiere by the Detroit Opera, which I did not go to. There was another performance last night, which I did not go to either. There’s only one performance left in the run, and if my decision was based solely on reviews, then I would have already bought a ticket.
Duante Beddingfield for the Detroit Free Press, in a review with “must-see” in the headline, writes:
When five African American and Latino boys are dragged through hell in late 1980s New York City, falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned for a gruesome crime, will they ever be able to find peace? Will they ever be whole again? These are the questions clanging at the core of Detroit Opera’s gripping production of “The Central Park Five,” Anthony Davis’ sweaty jazz opera that opened on Friday, May 10. Director Nataki Garrett takes a challenging amount of characters and material and weaves a soulful elegy of youth and innocence with an all-too-familiar villain beating the drum for capital punishment.
Maybe you haven’t yet figured out who the “all-too-familiar villain” is, but you will very soon, and well before you see the monster’s name. With only twelve characters listed in the opera’s Wikipedia page, I’m surprised by the critic calling that “a challenging amount.” Though then again, Götterdämmerung has only thirteen individual characters.
With law enforcement abusing the system to coerce false confessions, New York real estate mogul Donald Trump rises to the top of the angry voices calling for the boys’ heads. Over and over, the vicious, preening Trump takes the stage, flailing and sputtering, screaming into a golden telephone, gobbling McDonald’s fries and fanning the flames that rapidly engulf the boys.
Just as it happened in real life, “Trump moves on with his life, his image and influence bolstered by the episode,” while the boys suffer.
The five protagonists – Freddie Ballentine as Kevin Richardson, Chaz’men Williams-Ali as Raymond Santana, Nathan Granner as Korey Wise, Markel Reed as Yusef Salaam, and Justin Hopkins as Antron McCray – are exceptionally well cast. In particular, Williams-Ali is quite affecting, and Granner gives a soaring, chill-inducing performance.
There has already been at least one substitution in the cast of the Detroit Opera.
High praise is deserved for mezzo Kendra F. Beasley, who stepped into the role of Salaam’s mother as a last-minute substitute and delivered a jaw-dropping turn that drew cheers from the audience. Catherine Martin’s impressive vocal clarity is a highlight as she skillfully navigates the tricky role of the assistant district attorney. As the hateful, bloodthirsty Trump, Todd Strange is both eerily menacing and flat-out hilarious. Chomping exactly as much scenery as one might imagine the role requires, his surreal presence yields some of the show’s strongest moments. On Friday night [actually Saturday, May 10], this extended even to the curtain call, when Strange, Martin and Daniel Belcher (who portrays The Masque and the judge) took the stage together and were met with deafeningly loud boos echoing throughout the opera house – a sure sign of a job well done.
The critic also praises a cameraman and a projectionist working together to project extreme close ups of the protagonists’ faces during the interrogation session scene. That’s probably a much better use of the technology than some other operas that I’ve seen it used for. Kudos also to
Conductor Anthony Parnther [who] works wonders with the Detroit Opera Orchestra and Davis’ muscular, jazz-heavy score. Richly layered and bearing shades of Oliver Nelson, the music is a bit of a revelation, leaps and bounds more complicated than Davis’ earlier Malcolm X opera, recently explored in Detroit. The score begins with blistering chords that sound like shattering glass. With that, Parnther takes off and never looks back; it’s hard to imagine this show without him at the baton.
It would be inappropriate and perhaps unnecessary, to give a spoiler warning for this opera. Still,
Even if you’re familiar with the story of these five young men, there’s a new perspective and catharsis to be found in this epic retelling of “The Central Park Five.” And if you’ve never seen an opera, perhaps this should be your first.
I’m not sure about that. It might hit a little too close to home. There’s one more performance tomorrow, slated for 2:30 p.m. Tickets start at $30.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/17/2322747/-Reviews-are-starting-to-come-in-for-Detroit-Opera-production-of-Central-Park-Five?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
