Detroit Opera Steps Into Trump's Cross Hairs With ‘Central Park Five'

New York Times

28-04-2025

A rehearsal of 'The Central Park Five,' an opera about the Black and Latino boys wrongly convicted of raping a Central Park jogger, was just a few days old this month when the tenor who plays Donald J. Trump began to sing.
'They are animals! Monsters!…Support our police! Bring back the death penalty!' he bellowed.
The opera, which chronicles how the young men were forced to confess and later were exonerated, depicts President Trump as an inflammatory figure who, in 1989, bought several full-page newspaper ads that demonized 'roving bands of wild criminals,' adding, 'I want them to be afraid.'
When the work — composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by Richard Wesley — premiered in California in 2019, Mr. Trump's approval ratings were low and Democrats were itching to challenge him.
Now, as a new production opens next month at the Detroit Opera House, the setting is quite different. Mr. Trump is a resurrected, emboldened political force who, since returning to office, has wielded power to shutter federal agencies, cut grants and strong-arm law firms and universities, all of which has led some opponents to worry about retaliation.
None of this has been lost on Detroit Opera, as the company braces for blowback and hopes for applause. Its leadership team understands the perils of mounting a production that waves a red cape at a pumped-up, reactive presidency.
Surprisingly, the opera is partially financed by the National Endowment for the Arts, with some $40,000 of the production's $1 million cost coming through a federal grant. It was awarded, and paid, before the agency canceled most of its existing grants at the Trump administration's direction.
Todd Strange, the tenor who plays Mr. Trump, said in an interview that he could not deny feeling some trepidation at portraying a president who so consistently hits back at his critics. Still, Mr. Strange said, it was important to press forward.
'The fear can't shut me down from doing that,' he said. 'I'm not going to run away from the role.'
The stakes were certainly lower during Mr. Trump's first term, when he largely focused on broader issues and left cultural organizations alone. Round two has been different. The president has taken direct aim at culture and arts institutions — inserting himself as the head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and challenging the leadership and programming of the Smithsonian Institution in an effort to align them with his view of America.
Mr. Trump has criticized the Kennedy Center for celebrating 'radical left lunatics' and the Smithsonian for coming 'under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.'
But Detroit Opera says it is prepared for what might be looming, that it confirmed the backing of board members, alerted donors, considered the risks and took stock of its core mission.
'This piece is so worth telling,' said Yuval Sharon, the company's artistic director. 'We are not a political organization. We are a cultural organization that serves the city of Detroit and the greater region. And we are not taking a position with this opera, but it's obviously going to be inflammatory to have the character of Donald Trump onstage.'
Patty Isacson Sabee, the company's president and chief executive, said she thought it was important to have 'a healthy amount of fear,' adding, 'That will help drive me to make the best decisions about how to take care of everyone.'
The company has put in place additional precautions — beefing up security and preparing audience members for metal detectors at the door.
Detroit Opera has also enlisted an employee assistance program for this production in case any of the artists, creative team or staff decide they need additional support.
Mr. Davis, the composer of the work, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020, said this is a moment in the country that calls for artistic courage.
'They're trying to erase history, whether it's slavery or the civil rights struggle, or the history of racism,' said Mr. Davis. 'I don't think we can allow that. Particularly as African-Americans, we have to speak up.'
'We're seeing now with deportation the casualties that happen when there is a rush to judgment, when they don't follow procedure, when they ignore evidence, when you ignore the law, when you ignore the system that protects us,' he added. 'That can be the cost of dissent. We're allowed to say what we want, and that's part of our country. That's part of who we are.'
Mr. Trump has bristled in the past about his depiction on shows like 'Saturday Night Live' that have satirized him, but his reaction to the opera, a more serious work whose libretto incorporates Mr. Trump's own words, is so far not known.
The White House press office did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Trump did not apologize for his characterization of the young men, and just this month a federal judge refused to dismiss a defamation lawsuit they brought against the president.
The five men — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray — sued the president for his remarks in a 2024 presidential debate with Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump falsely said that the men had pleaded guilty to the crime and that someone had been killed during the attack.
At the Democratic National Convention that year, four of the five men — who now prefer to be called the Exonerated Five — said that what Mr. Trump did to them was devastating and disqualified him for a second term.
The men spent between seven to 13 years in prison until their sentences were overturned in 2002 when the district attorney determined that the assault was committed by a man named Matias Reyes. The five subsequently received a $41 million dollar settlement from New York City and have since been the focus of films, including a documentary by Ken Burns, and the fictionalized, Emmy Award-winning Netflix series 'When They See Us,' by Ava DuVernay.
As is typical with opera production calendars, Detroit scheduled 'The Central Park Five' two years in advance, before Mr. Trump's second-term aspirations had gathered steam. Yet when Mr. Sharon, the artistic director, reached out to Mr. Davis after the 2024 election, the composer first thought he was calling to cancel the 'Central Park Five.'
'That was the first indication to me that there is likely going to be a great cooling-off effect in our culture,' Mr. Sharon said, 'that we had to actively fight against.'
The board chairman of Detroit Opera said that he and his fellow trustees have been unwavering in their support of the production.
'There was never a moment where we questioned this,' said the chairman, Ethan D. Davidson. 'Audiences are increasingly demanding stories that are relevant to their lived experiences. There is no better example of that than the 'Central Park Five.' People in this community want to see themselves represented onstage.'
Those who are depicting members of the Central Park Five expressed a similar sense of resolve. 'The job of art is to be society's mirror,' said Chaz'men Williams-Ali, who plays Santana. 'Who could have foreseen that we would be back with this person in the White House with this opera being what it is? But here we are, and we can't let that stop us from taking a swing at it and saying what we got to say.'
Nataki Garrett, the opera's director, said that as a Black woman who has held leadership positions — she recently served as the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — she already felt vulnerable under Mr. Trump, given his termination of diversity efforts and his history of disparaging women.
'I have to go into this with my eyes wide open, and I have to be bare in the face of my own fear,' she said. 'But it is of the utmost importance to make sure that this story is told. You keep telling a story like this until you don't have to anymore.'