2's Got Your Ticket to "Champion"
CHICAGO (CBS) -- There's a unique staging is making its way to the Lyric Opera.
It combines boxing, dance, and jazz.
With 2's Got Your Ticket, CBS 2 Entertainment Reporter Vince Gerasole has a preview of "Champion" and talks with composer Terence Blanchard about the creation of the jazz opera and the story of boxer, welterweight boxer Emile Griffith.
He's the real-life inspiration for the production.
"I never imagined myself writing an opera," Blanchard said.
Blanchard spoke to Gerasole about the complexities of creating the jazz opera about the boxer. Through jazz and choreography, the production details how Griffith was a world-champion boxer who was also bisexual.
"The first time I won my first award, I turned to my wife and kissed her and shared a moment with her and this guy became the welterweight champion of the world and he couldn't share that with somebody that he loved," Blanchard said. "And that just broke my heart thinking about that."
He said that a devasting fight greatly impacted Griffith's life.
"The whole notion of killing your friend in the ring and having to live with that and learning to have to forgive yourself for that, the redemptive part of that was also very powerful," Blanchard said.
Blanchard said telling the story through jazz and opera was an important way to tell the story.
"What I'm trying to do is use everything available to me through my traditions of the music that I grew up listening to," he said. "Whether it be church music or jazz."