A PRETENDER NOT A CONTENDER AT THE LYRIC

Whether you are, like me, a boxing fan or unalterably opposed to that primal sport for its bloody brutality, if you’re planning to see Champion, the Lyric Opera’s “opera in jazz,” it’s essential to first view a certain grainy black-and-white video available on YouTube.  It depicts one of the absolute low points in the history of the sport, Emile Griffith’s fatal beating of Cuban boxer Benny Paret in their third fight; the actual footage of Paret’s slow collapse under a barrage of 29 unanswered punches from Griffith is an important corrective to the awkwardly aestheticized and distanced version of that event that is intended to be the dramatic turning point of Champion.

With music by the esteemed composer and Grammy-winning jazz artist Terence Blanchard and a libretto by Pulitzer- and Tony-winning lyricist Michael Cristofer, the Lyric premiere, directed by James Robinson with the Lyric’s Enrique Mazzola as music director, certainly has a champion’s pedigree.   But the music disappoints and the libretto is the lyrical equivalent of a lazy left jab.

The story of Champion centers on Griffith’s painful and parentless upbringing in the U.S. Virgin Islands; his purely accidental entry into the world of boxing (he’d wanted to be a baseball player, but the owner of a hat factory where Griffith was working noticed his impressive physique and referred him to the famous boxing trainer Gil Clancy); and his descent into a guilt-ridden twilight existence after his boxing career ends, although, inconveniently for theatrical purposes, that doesn’t occur for another 80 fights after the death of Paret. 

One of the central concerns of Champion is Griffith’s struggle with his sexuality.  At the weigh-ins before their final fight, Paret had mocked the bisexual Griffith, calling him a “maricon” (the Spanish equivalent of “faggot”) and touching his buttocks.  The popular interpretation of Griffith’s fatal beating of Paret was that, enraged by this slur, he exacted his revenge in the ring.  But this assumption ignores any number of complicating factors:  Griffith himself was almost knocked out in the sixth round, and was saved by the bell; it wasn’t a “beating,” it was the sport of boxing, albeit an unusually brutal encounter; Griffith was able to throw so many unanswered punches partly because Paret became entangled in the ropes; and the referee, who thought at first that Paret was playing possum, didn’t step in soon enough to halt the fight.  Additionally, as the opera acknowledges, Paret re-entered the ring too soon after being battered by Gene Fullmer in his previous fight.

All of these factors — in addition to the fact that pre-fight smack talking and scuffles are part of the game — tend to vitiate the easy and dramatically convenient conclusion that Griffith killed Paret in a fit of rage.  

Champion itself undercuts this notion of rage by staging the fight in an unimaginative way that utterly minimizes the brutality in favor of slow-motion, freeze-frame posing that’s the theatrical equivalent of a light sparring session.  

Nonetheless, there is little doubt that Griffith blamed himself for Paret’s death (he had lingered in a coma for 10 days after the fight before succumbing). Following the Paret fight, Griffith lost major bouts to fellow welterweight greats Alan Minter, Vito Antuofermo, Carlos Monzon and Nino Benvenuti.  He might not have felt sufficient guilt to quit boxing, but he stated that in his later bouts he’d pulled his punches, fearful of causing another death.  It’s hard to determine whether this was a fact, or whether Griffith had just outstayed his welcome in the boxing world, too old and too slow for the younger generation of welterweights. 

This story, Griffith’s later-life beating at the hands of a homophobic mob after leaving a gay bar, and his slow descent into dementia pugilistica, are all relayed by means of a libretto that is — I’m not going to pull any punches myself — astonishingly banal, as if it were the work of a tangle-footed amateur featherweight rather than a polished professional.  In overly long, meandering lines that stumble about in search of a rhyme, the librettist traffics in cliche — “I’ve got the devil inside me, you know,” the painfully obvious — “I never meant to hurt nobody,” and the platitudinous — “Don’t let go of something good just because you’re feeling bad.”  

Consider the lack of imagination and redundancy of this solo by Griffith, as he looks back at where it all went wrong:

“In my head it happens fast,

Something good turns into something that don’t last.

Something good turns into something bad so fast.

In my head, it comes and goes,

One day when you have everything, 

One day when everything you have is gone.

Hold on to everything that is good.

Don’t let it go.  

Don’t let it disappear. 

Don’t let it turn around.  Turn around.

Turn around bad. 

In my head…”

While these lyrics might work well in a light pop song, when conveyed in an operatic setting in the impressive baritone of Reginald Smith, Jr. as the older Emile, they come across as inadvertently comical.

The music, too, is flatter than Floyd Patterson after his encounter with Sonny Liston.  I was intrigued by the notion of a “jazz opera,” but I heard very little that was jazz- or blues-inflected, just a repetitive and monotonous melody that seemed ill-fitted to the libretto, with the lyrics sometimes seeming to stretch to fit the music, and the music sometimes elongating unnaturally to match the rambling lyrics. 

Where Champion does work is in its livelier, less glumly contemplative scenes in St. Thomas, in the hat factory, and in a boxing gym where we see young hopefuls working out.  The high-energy choreography is by Camille A. Brown.  The set design, as one would expect from the Lyric Opera, is superb, especially the brightly lit little bedroom, juxtaposed against the glum towers of a New York tenement, where Griffith spends his final days wrestling with guilt, regret and a slowly loosening grip on reality.  The set designer is Allen Moyer, and Tony Award-winner Montana Levi Blanco designed the colorful costumes.  Production design is by Greg Emetaz.  

Griffith is portrayed in his boxing days by Justin Austin and, as a youth, by Naya James.  The three share an effective scene where they join together in prayer.  Also effective is a scene where Griffith’s mother, portrayed by Whitney Morrison, runs into him on a New York street and confuses him for another of her sons.  Chicago actor Larry Yando portrays a Jimmy Lennon, Jr.-style ring announcer.

Near the end — though not at the end — the elder Griffith, his adopted son Luis Rodrigo Griffith (Martin Luther Clark) and others gather in a New York park to sing the repeated line “there’s nothing left to say,” and yet, much like Griffith’s career, the show lingers on long after that.  Despite the elder Griffith’s musings on guilt and his struggles with a sexuality that he was forced by his benighted times to hide, the story of Champion never settles on a distinctive and memorable message.  Beyond its admirable sympathy for its troubled protagonist, Champion really doesn’t have much else to say. 

Somewhat Recommended

Reviewed by Michael Antman

Presented January 27 through February 11 by Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive.

Tickets are available at lyricopera.org or by calling 312-827-5600.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.