Seattle Opera tackles complex issues of race, policing in new production

Before the death of George Floyd prompted a national reckoning on racism, a new opera was set to be performed in Seattle on that very topic.

Sidelined by the pandemic, that opera is now playing at McCaw Hall — and it’s even more relevant.

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“Blue” is a modern opera about an African-American mother, father, and son.

“It’s a family story first. It’s a human story,” opera singer Ariana Wehr said.

She says the emotions are universal and the storyline is pointedly relevant.

For instance, there’s a scene in which the father — a police officer — pleads with his Black son to be careful: “You’re a Black boy! A walking moving target,” he sings to the teenager as he implores his son to take off his hoodie and jewelry.

But the son is killed by a police officer at a protest. Adding to the complexity, the officer is one of the father’s coworkers and a friend.

For members of the diverse cast, Wehr says: “There’s an emotional cost, I think, to all of us telling this story. For myself, personally, in working on it, I had a lot of anger and pain about the extrajudicial murders of Black people at the hands of people in this country and around the world.”

The opera cast carries the weight of their own experiences and what they want others to understand.

“I think I feel an added sense of responsibility for just getting it right, doing justice to this piece,” cast member Korland Simmons said.

“Because it’s so contemporary and speaks to our times, I think it’s incumbent upon us to tell this story in a really great way that hits home some of the high notes of what’s in the piece,” he added.

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But why opera? Why is this the appropriate vehicle for such a weighty topic?

“For opera,” Simmons says, “you have to have these voices that are able to carry over an orchestra and out into a theater, and that — in and of itself — is amazing, and arresting, and causes you to stop what you’re doing and really pay attention.”

“And opera is large — it’s large-scale storytelling,” Wehr added.

She believes that it is an appropriate venue to explore complex issues like race relations, the role of police, love, and family.

“I believe that art, of all kinds, has the capacity to hold up a mirror to ourselves and our society and let us think about the kind of citizens and friends we want to be,” Wehr said.

“It can help spark some conversations that we all need to have,” Simmons added.

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