“Fire Shut Up In My Bones”, a poignant opera centred on the tension of growing up a Black man in the American south, was composed by Terence Blanchard, a top-tier jazz trumpeter and Spike Lee’s go-to film score master for three decades.

When the premier opera company first announced its staging in 2019, it was unclear when exactly “Fire” would come to Manhattan. But the months of Black Lives Matter protests that reverberated nationwide and beyond last year lent the project new urgency.

The Met is the largest performing arts institution in the United States, but in its 138 years of existence has never before presented an opera by a Black composer.

Reopening its doors with Blanchard’s work offered an opportunity to make a statement.

It’s progress “bigger than me”, the Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated artist told AFP when the Met first announced it would produce “Fire”.

“It says more about what’s going on in our country; what’s going on in the world of art, and the statement that this makes.”

“Fire”, which originally premiered in St Louis, is Blanchard’s second opera. With a libretto from film director Kasi Lemons, it is based on the searing memoir of Charles Blow, a columnist at The New York Times.

The book recounts his coming-of-age as a Black boy in the US deep south, grappling with racism and abuse, sexuality and inner rage.

“I have a feeling it’s going to be a momentous thing, and not because it’s me,” Blanchard told AFP of the historic staging.

“Fire” is slated to run until Oct 23.