{"id":7,"date":"2019-06-09T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/?p=999953213"},"modified":"2019-06-28T15:09:33","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T22:09:33","slug":"lb-operas-the-central-park-five-set-for-monumental-world-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/art\/lb-operas-the-central-park-five-set-for-monumental-world-premiere","title":{"rendered":"LB Opera world premiere to tell tragedy of ‘The Central Park Five’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A director once told bass-baritone Derrell Acon, a veteran of “Don Giovanni” and “Aida,” that opera is only worth performing if \u201csomething monumental happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may be why Acon is excited about his new role in Long Beach Opera\u2019s production of “The Central Park Five,” the story of a monumental miscarriage of justice, which will have its world premiere Saturday, June 15, at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro.<\/p>\n

The year 1989 was in many ways a pivotal time in New York City. Violent crime was on the rise, so was the popularity of hip-hop\u2014as well as the backlash against it. Spike Lee\u2019s film on simmering racial tensions, “Do the Right Thing,” was hitting theaters and a blustery New York real estate mogul was fomenting anger after the brutal rape of a 28-year-old, female jogger in Central Park.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Central Park Five, from top left: Korey Wise, Antron McCray and Kevin Richardson. From bottom left: Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Acon plays one of five Harlem youths convicted of rape and other charges in “The Central Park Five,” which will also be performed June 22 and 23 at the Warner Grand.<\/p>\n

The convictions of the men, who were boys aged 14 to 16 at the time, were vacated after another man later confessed to the rape. DNA evidence proved he had committed the crime.<\/p>\n

The Long Beach Opera production, composed by Anthony Davis and directed by Andreas Mitisek, uses classic opera style as well as jazz and hip-hop to tell the story of the five youths who said they were deprived of food and sleep by police interrogators. They later retracted their confessions, which they said were coerced. They eventually won a $41 million settlement from the city after serving between five and 13 years in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happened in 1989 but this is still going on today and a lot of the prejudice is still around now and seems to be resurfacing more in some regards,” Mitisek said. “We are not trying to do a documentary about these five people. That has been done really well. What we want to create is a work of art that is based on their experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davis, who has penned five operas, including X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X<\/i>,<\/i> says music undergirds the story of the Central Park Five. He\u00a0wound Boyz II Men-type riffs and other split harmonies into the opera and does a P-Funk parody as the actors are going into the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were definitely the children of this movement,\u201d he said Thursday during a community conversation called Black Lives, the Arts and Mattering<\/i>. \u201cThey were putting them in prison, but they were also putting a culture in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opera runs at the same time Netflix is airing the series, \u201cWhen They See Us,\u201d a dramatization based on the infamous case. The original five are scheduled to be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in a conversation scheduled to air on Netflix and OWN on Wednesday, June 12.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The men falsely convicted in the Central Park Five case, today (from left): Richardson, McCray, Santana, Wise and Salaam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Acon, who plays Antron McCray and was a year old when the crime occurred, spoke of the production while waiting for the start of a weekday rehearsal in a deserted Fresh & Easy store in Downtown Long Beach, converted into a rehearsal space. To those who say they don\u2019t want to pay to see another instance of injustice\u2014or Donald Trump in an opera\u2014Acon says give this one a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cOpera has this amazing ability to catalyze these difficult subjects and discussions,\u201d said Acon, who, five years ago, lectured on the Black American experience and studied Giuseppe Verdi in Italy on a Fulbright scholarship. \u201cOpera enters and it helps tell their story and it helps us as audience members process the complication of accepting that we are all layered as human beings but we all deserve as Americans the same right to justice, true justice and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The characters include an assistant district attorney and the \u201cMasque\u201d who plays a \u201cbad cop,\u201d as well as a reporter and judge\u2014forces who helped spin the story to ensnare the youths despite a lack of forensic evidence and wildly divergent confessions.<\/p>\n

The interrogation is a central part of the work. The actors sit in chairs, each by a door frame meant to portray an interrogation room. They musically voice their confusion and despair:<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s my dad?<\/i><\/p>\n

Where\u2019s my mom?<\/i><\/p>\n

I just wanted to go home<\/i><\/p>\n

I told them what they wanted to hear<\/i><\/p>\n

They said I could go home!<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have these five young guys … living their lives in Harlem and they\u2019re having their experiences and not all of [their experiences] <\/b>are not beautiful and … then this event happens and it changes their lives forever,\u201d said Acon.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Leslie Dunner, Conductor, directs during a rehearsal, from left to right, Bernard Holcomb, Nathan Granner, Derrell Acon, Cedric Berry and Orson Van Gay, who play the men wrongfully convicted of raping a woman in New York in \u201cThe Central Park Five,\u201d of the Long Beach Opera in Long Beach Saturday, June 1, 2019. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tenor Tomas Segen plays Donald Trump, the bombastic, publicity-hungry real estate mogul who took out full-page ads in the Daily News that helped fan anger toward the accused boys.<\/p>\n

Acon said he was \u201cvery happy (Trump\u2019s) contributions to this storyline are being presented because they\u2019re atrocious.\u201d<\/p>\n

But playing Antron McCray, who said later his own father urged him to \u201ctell the police what they wanted to hear,\u201d even though it wasn\u2019t true, was a different matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis experience was so difficult, but also my experience as a young black man living in this country, and knowing many of the same prejudices \u2026 it\u2019s a great tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast was to meet in L.A. with the real Central Park Five on Friday in a lunch sponsored by the ACLU. Asked what he would say to the real Antron, Acon said:\u00a0\u201cA part of me doesn\u2019t want to say much … I feel any level of sympathy they\u2019ve heard is almost just excess at this point. I almost feel like having a sheet of paper and writing down all my lines from the opera. From operatic Antron.\u201d<\/p>\n