In rehearsal at Lyric Opera of Chicago for my two-act work, “Blue.” I had gone to bed on election night with a mixed sense of hope and dread and woke up Wednesday morning with a deep sense of grief, betrayal, fear, anger, disbelief and loss.
The efforts that I had taken, and my one vote, combined with those of millions of others, hadn’t been enough. In the larger picture, the future of democracy looked to be in danger. In the immediate smaller-world picture, rehearsal room 200, I knew I would be unable to dispel the gloom hanging over the cast and crew. An unspoken decision not to discuss the election results or the repercussions it presented to us — frightening possible futures — didn’t diminish the undeniable new resonance in the lyrics we were working on.
Five years ago when The New York Times asked me for a note about the creation of my libretto for “Blue,” I wrote an essay about the work and its evolution — about collaborating with the renowned opera and Broadway composer Jeanine Tesori and about the varied influences that lead me to my story. The newspaper, on the front page of the arts section, headlined the piece “My Journey to Writing an Opera About Police Violence.”
My libretto is not about police violence. It’s a big-themed but nonetheless intimate opera, centered on a young Black couple (the father a police officer) living in Harlem, about to have their first child, a boy; how their hopes, dreams and wishes for their now-teenage son are dashed to pieces when he is killed by a white police officer; how the church and community of friends and fellow officers gather to mourn, pray and comfort the grieving parents; how joy, pride, laughter, brotherhood and sisterhood, resilience and love are all celebrated.
Presenting “Blue” here and now feels all too apt because the kind of violence in the opera — offstage, but devastating — is the grimmest example of unbridled state power. It is a force exerted disproportionately in the Black community, as events of the past five years and the past 250 years so terribly demonstrate. It is a big part of what we fear, even more since the election.
The institutions that we had once relied on to protect us from chaos and uncertainty, to provide guardrails against injustice, seem now in the hands of those who have the power to destroy them. The most vulnerable among us are now at greater risk, again: children who deserve an unmarred earth; women and girls who will be stripped of the right to govern their own bodies; Black, brown and Indigenous people who are being openly targeted in public forums with impunity; trans and nonbinary youths whose sovereignty has been under attack; poor and working families who must pay their taxes while billionaires receive exemptions; and on and on.
As rehearsals continued, it became clear to me that the challenge is and will continue to be how to reconnect — how to put our shattered inner world back together and figure out how to carry on in any kind of positive way.
Practiced at its highest level, my business — or profession or art (and it is all of these) — can elevate us and help us navigate through difficult, divisive and challenging times and situations. So many of us now are deeply disappointed, despondent, despairing, depressed and devastated. It is my personal mission — along with the extraordinary talents onstage and offstage at Lyric, my fellow first responders to the soul — to bring and carry you on a music journey. It is a journey not to forget or lose yourselves, but to find and rediscover, through opera, who we really are: fellow seekers of truth, beauty and a shared humanity.
Opera’s main function is to clarify and inform and influence life. And because it appeals to us largely through our emotions, it is one of the most effective transformative vehicles. It beguiles us into fresh thoughts and perceptions of ourselves while we laugh and cry and figuratively hold each other’s hands, sheltering in place in the dark, witnessing and attending and absorbing, on a lighted stage, soaring on the songs of our hearts — breaking and mending our hearts all at once.
As heartbroken as I remain today, I am glad I am here, at Lyric Opera of Chicago — a beautiful temple dedicated to remarkable music and transformational storytelling. Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago” comes rushing into my mind: “Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.”
In opera, narrative and music combine with the visual to make for the entire synesthetic effect. The words, music, scenery, costumes, lighting and staging work together to render an experience more powerful than reading a great book, seeing a play or hearing a symphony.
If we are fulfilled with a forever memorable experience, if we have been extraordinarily moved and delightfully entertained, if we have appreciated the all-encompassing music journey, we stand together and applaud and whistle and shout “Bravo.” We leave the opera house smiling at the strangers we have spent the past several hours with and will probably never see again.
Hopefully, we leave with clearer eyes and strengthened resolve. We can and will “put our shoulder to the wheel” — the words fit today’s political situation so well — and do what has to be done to counteract the evil and injustice that lie ahead. We can think of opera as a balm as well as a weapon, as a type of emotional inoculation, because although hate, revenge and retribution may soon occupy the halls of our democracy, opera plays and sings a key role in never allowing it to occupy our hearts.
Tazewell Thompson is the librettist and director of “Blue,” onstage at Lyric Opera of Chicago through Dec. 1.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.