New Opera about Muhammad Ali

Charles T. Downey, The Washington National Opera’s ‘Approaching Ali’
Washington Post, June 10, 2013

D. Miller, The Tao of Muhammad Ali

Little is more exciting than the chance to hear a new opera. There before you is an unknown libretto, characters and plot unfolding, and unheard music flowing into your ears for the first time without anyone’s impressions or experience of the work to bias your own. So kudos to the Washington National Opera for putting its money where its mouth is by supporting the American Opera Initiative, which aims to foster composers and librettists in the composition of new operas. The program closed its first season with the presentation of “Approaching Ali,” a new opera by D.J. Sparr heard Saturday night in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

The opera tells the story of a writer’s encounter with his boyhood hero, the boxer Muhammad Ali, drawn from the autobiographical story and novel “The Tao of Muhammad Ali” by Davis Miller, who co-wrote the libretto with experienced librettist Mark Campbell. The character of the adult Miller, sung with force and passion by baritone David Kravitz, knocks on the door of Ali’s mother’s house, hoping to get an autograph and show his idol a story he has written about him, and is invited in for dinner. [Continue reading]

D. J. Sparr, Approaching Ali
Washington National Opera
American Opera Initiative
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
Tim Smith, 'Approaching Ali' enters operatic ring, shows promise (Baltimore Sun, June 10)

Anne Midgette, ‘Approaching Ali,’ the second stage of WNO’s effort to foster new American opera (Washington Post, June 8)

Gary Tischler, 'Approaching Ali': Soloman Howard's Challenge (The Georgetowner, June 6)