CHAMPION (The Met: Live in HD)

The first opera by the seven-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard, Champion depicts the double-life of closeted boxer Emile Griffith, from his arrival in New York City from the U.S. Virgin Islands to his rise from hatmaker to world-champion prizefighter to the tragic moment that he killed his opponent in the ring—an act that haunted him for the rest of his life.

Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green portrays the Young Emile Griffith, and bass-baritone Eric Owens plays Griffith’s tormented older self. The cast also features soprano Latonia Moore as Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother; mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the gay-bar owner Kathy Hagen; tenor Paul Groves as Howie Albert, the factory owner who discovered Emile’s boxing talent; and baritone Eric Greene as both Benny “Kid” Paret, the fighter who taunted Griffith with homophobic slurs, ultimately leading him to unleash a barrage of blows in a 1962 title fight, and Benny Paret, Jr. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducts.

Director James Robinson—whose productions of Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at the Met scored major successes—directs Champion , as he did when the work had its world premiere in St. Louis a decade ago. Camille A. Brown, who electrified audiences with her choreography in Porgy and Fire , also returns.