'Opera, moreover, needs no pretense for fact. It prosecutes through sensibility. You can shut your eyes and close your mind, but not your ears.' Music critic markswed reviews Anthony Davis’ opera 'The Central Park Five':
), in each case capturing the pulse of the time through a special blend of eloquence and unblinking righteousness.
Opera, moreover, needs no pretense for fact. It prosecutes through sensibility. You can shut your eyes and close your mind, but not your ears. Consequently, Davis’ supercharged score grippingly conveys the claustrophobia of a racist legal system and society from which there was, for these five innocent boys and their families, no exit.
With a prosaic libretto by Richard Wesley and a production of limited means that relies on television and newspaper documentation flashed on movable screens, Davis has his own series of obstacles. He also noted in the pre-concert discussion that in an earlier iteration of the work he had expected to have a double cast — five as boys, and then five as grown men after incarceration — but he arrived at rehearsals to find only one set of singers who had to be both.
Most of the opera, which is in two acts, follows the five through their arbitrary apprehension, inappropriate questioning, dubious trial, conviction and harsh sentencing. The boys react much of the time in quintet, voices blending in disbelief and outrage. The most effective operatic innovation is the creation of the Masque, who is less a character than the embodiment of white racism, be it the police, a reporter or various others.
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