Writing an opera is no small feat. The combination of poignant themes in the music score, a meaningful libretto (the written text, or script), and an elaborate stage production is nothing short of epic — a quality that is reflected in the three works nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 GRAMMYs.
"I actually wrote a book about all this, and the title sums it up: The Impossible Art," composer Matthew Aucoin says with a laugh. At only 32, the Boston native and MacArthur Fellow has garnered wide acclaim for his ambitious operas and bold forays into established orchestral formats — the second movement of his 2016 Piano Concerto is bewitching.
"In a way, opera has impossibility at its core," he adds. "It strives for this union of all senses and art forms: music, poetry, drama, painting, lighting and dance. It really wants to create this avatar-level immersion into another world. The thing that I find touching about opera is that it fails most of the time — and when it does, it can look quite silly. But we live for those rare moments of transcendence."
One of the three nominated operas, Aucoin’s Eurydice — with its lush orchestrations and nods to the minimalism of Philip Glass and John Adams — has certainly transcended. The libretto by Sarah Ruhl is based on her 2003 play of the same name, reinventing the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
This year’s second nominated opera, the jazz-inflected Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which opened in Saint Louis in 2019, focuses on a young Black man who grew up in poverty and now must face the consequences of the sexual abuse he suffered in the past. In 2021, it became the first opera by a Black composer performed at the Met in New York. Kasi Lemmons wrote the libretto, with music by New Orleans trumpeter, composer and multiple Grammy winner Terence Blanchard.
"The first day that we were rehearsing, I had an epiphany," Blanchard told Time magazine in 2021. "A lot of them, like my dad, grew up singing in the church. And when it comes time to do [opera], they have to turn that off. One of the things I’ve been telling them is to bring that back to this."
The music of Fire illustrates the state of contemporary opera — a moment of unrestrained stylistic freedom. There are moments that are classical in style, even reminiscent of Italian masters like Puccini, but some of the melodies are also infused in jazz harmony.
X – The Life And Times Of Malcolm X by veteran pianist and music professor Anthony Davis, is the oldest of the three nominated works. Written by Thulani Davis, the opera opened at Philadelphia’s American Music Theater Festival in 1985. The nominated recording stems from a new version conducted in Boston by Gil Rose.
"Writing an opera is something that is done day by day," Davis tells GRAMMY.com. "You have to devote yourself for two years to work on one single thing."
Davis first harbored the dream of writing an opera when he was in high school, although he had yet to experience a live operatic performance. Later, when his brother was playing Malcolm X in a play at Yale Drama, he suggested to Davis that he write a musical about X. It was at that moment that he envisioned an opera as the framework for the story of a tragic American hero.
Seeped in dissonance and avant-garde, X showcases Davis’ love for the innovations of jazz greats such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus.
"I love the fact that when I was writing X, I knew that every day I was working towards something," he adds. "Malcolm’s story gave me an incredible pathway to the way in which I could express the story through music. I was always thinking about how the music can refer to itself. I was interested in finding funny ways to use leitmotifs and having musical ideas to come back and provide subtext to the story in the opera."
Music itself — its creation and ability to uplift — is at the heart of the Eurydice myth. This element was particularly attractive to Aucoin when it came to composing his opera.
"It’s the story of how music came to exist, in a way," he reflects. "The myth tells us that music has the power to bring you back from the dead. But then the myth brings you crashing down back to Earth, showing that we’re always going to mess things up, because we’re human. We’re not really worthy of music, in a certain way."
Worthy or not, the prospect of a GRAMMY Award has some of these composers in disbelief.
"I’d be amazed if I won," Davis says with a laugh. "It would be a great honor, but I’d also think about all the great musicians and singers who have performed this music. So many great artists contributed to the creation of the new version of X. This new generation of singers were able to rise to the occasion and create their own version of my opera. They delivered some truly wonderful performances."
"I’m not giving it too much thought," says Aucoin. "Being nominated was a very pleasant surprise. Sometimes, we composers forget that people actually listen to the recordings of new operas. It’s obviously a huge honor, but I also have a lot of friends involved in both of the other nominated works. I will be happy for whoever wins."
"Writing X was so exciting to me because I was in tenth grade when I thought about possibly composing an opera," adds Davis. "It was the realization of a dream that I had since I was a teenager."