Ethan Joseph

Yakup, a Turkish music teacher seeking asylum in New York, is separated from his wife and young daughter, who remain under surveillance back home. When his asylum case stalls, he faces an impossible choice: wait years for legal reunification or risk everything to bring his family out by dangerous, clandestine means. Alone in an unfamiliar city, Yakup becomes increasingly consumed by the distance between himself and his family. As the wait stretches on, his obsession with reuniting his family begins to warp his sense of time, memory and reality. The more desperate he becomes, the less certain he is of who to trust and what is happening around him.

Six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard brings his first opera to the Met after his Fire Shut Up in My Bones triumphantly premiered with the company to universal acclaim in 2021. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is the bar owner Kathy Hagan. Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for Blanchard’s second Met premiere, also reuniting the director-and-choreographer team of James Robinson and Camille A. Brown.