Last week was an earthquake. This week was a solar eclipse. While neither were firsts, on the same day as the eclipse, I attended my first ever opera. Fire Shut Up in My Bones is the namesake opera based on Charles M. Blow’s memoir.

Thank goodness I read the memoir before attending the opera, or else I would’ve been lost for most of it. My ears are more attuned to Broadway musicals than to the fanciful operatic voices. I say that with a chuckle as if I’m a Broadway connoisseur, but I’ve been to a fair share, including Aladdin, The Color Purple, Kinky Boots, Motown, Ja Ja’s African Hair Braiding, MJ the Musical amongst others and off-Broadway musicals.

I was happy and amazed to see so many Black people on stage singing opera.  Obviously, I’m aware of Audra McDonald. Not too long ago I watched a PBS documentary on Marian Anderson. I know there are a handful of others, but I won’t pretend to know their names.

The angelic voice of Ethan Joseph, who plays young Charles (called Char’es-Baby by family and neighborhood folk), reminded me of the actor who played young Michael in MJ the Musical. Sure enough, the Playbill states he played him in the touring version of the show. Older Charles is played by Ryan Speedo Green.

The opera omitted quite a bit from the book. Even so, it had a running time of three hours with one extended intermission during which people had time for restroom and refreshment break, and a second that was barely five minutes. My seatmate, an older white gentleman, informed me that he too had read it. We were both curious and shocked to see how they would portray a young Charles be violated by older cousin Chester. The moment I read the chapter name as simply “Chester,” I knew some mess was going to go down. In the novel, Blow mentions that there was never any penetration, but both their pants were removed, and Chester rubbed up against him. Onstage, the actors removed their pants while standing in front of a bed. My heart lurched when I saw the little boy playing young Charles remove his pants.

Left out of the opera were the other TWO times Charles was violated by someone he knew. It was devastating to read the scene between Charles and his beloved uncle. “I was awakened by the feel of his hand moving across my hip, arcing the way a snake moves across a log, slow and deliberate, searching for a soft spot to come down, purposeful not a mistake…Without a word, before the hand found its target, I quietly got up and walked out of Paul’s room and back to mine. I never slept in his room again, and neither of us spoke of the hand that moved across my hip like a snake.”

The third and final time was when his older brother’s friend made comments and asked questions that should not have been asked of a little boy as they sat parked in a gas station as his brother ran into the convenience store to pay. Upon returning, his brother noticed Charles was visibly shaken but did not press the matter.

My favorite part of the opera as well as the most quick-paced and intense scenes in the memoir is when Charles is pledging to become a brother of Kappa Alpha Psi. The graphic details of the hazing were uncomfortable in the book and brief onstage. Accustomed to pain, Charles amazes his big brothers when he barely flinches or cries out. Ever the overachiever, Charles pledges and crosses when he is just a freshman, partly because he has been class president and has been vouched for by upperclassmen, though not everyone is a fan.

Having a Blackity Black Black step show break out in the middle of an opera show in an opera house was a great moment of community. The beautiful interior of the theater itself is all red lined with gold. During the performance of at least a dozen Black men dressed in red bow-ties and cardigan sweaters and khakis, there were yelps and shouts of “go ‘head!” from the audience. I found myself bopping my head and swaying to the beat in my seat. I always love when step shows have canes.

Once the five-to-ten-minute performance ended, it received the longest applause break of the show, except at curtain call, when even the real Charles Blow came out to take a bow. I attended opening night. Some gave a standing ovation. Some of us—me included—whooped and hollered. The male performers’ chests heaved as they recovered from all the exertion.

Though I arrived late, I know from my seatmate the play started the same as the book: with Charles hopping in his car with a gun speeding to his hometown in Louisiana in a frenzy to shoot and kill Chester, to whom his mother had passed the phone when he called home.

Fun fact: when you arrive late to a show at The Metropolitan Opera, they don’t seat you until intermission. They bring you to a holding cell—just kidding—a mini-theater where the show is telecasted on a screen. My shame started to dissipate when I noticed there were at least 30 of us in there. It evaporated altogether when people arrived later than me. I arrived the same time as an older white couple. While double-checking the address was indeed Lincoln Center, I realized too late curtain call was 7 pm, not 8. I arrived at 7:18.

At one point, pre-intermission, they told us we could start heading to our seats, but intermission was still about 20 minutes away. Some returned to the mini-theater, while some of us watched from the back of the theater. My ticket was Seat ! in Row AA, so I could have been seated, but the usher said someone was in my seat. Sidebar: none of the ushers were friendly.

Thankfully, since I read the book, I was able to discern from the interpretive dance scene that because of his sexual assaults, Charles struggled with his sexuality. Even as a child, he had been attracted to boys and girls and had several sexual encounters with girls as a teen. Part of this was motivated by not wanting to be called a punk. One partner led him to believe he had fathered her child. Everyone but him knew the truth during the girl’s pregnancy. After he confronted her post-partum, her family moved away.

Philandering was the norm in Charles’ childhood. More than once, he recounts a story of a wife shooting at a cheating husband—one of these stories being his own parents. Though his parents had finally split up, he was devastated to witness them having sex. His father sporadically came around, though not for the right reasons.

Charles also recounts moving into different childhood homes. One sticks with him and receives a name: The House with No Steps. Because of the age gap between Charles and his four older brothers, he basically grows up as an only child and mama’s boy. Seeing his mother work hard at a factory yet go back to school spurs his own motivation to do well throughout his school career. After graduating from Grambling, Charles and a line brother drive to Atlanta to attend a job fair sponsored by the New York Times. His tenacity leads to a role being created for him.

By the end of, and because of the memoir, Charles reveals to his mother what had transpired with both Chester and Uncle Paul. The opera ends with him being cradled in her bosom after he informs her he has to tell her something.

Memoir is my favorite genre to read. When I purchased Fire Shut Up in My Bones a few years ago, (originally published in 2014), I had no idea who Charles M. Blow until I read the author summary touting him as a New York Times columnist who’s appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, BBC, Al Jazeera and HBO. I bought it because it’s a memoir, bonus: written by a Black man. I pulled it from the shelves to attend the operatic dramatization, whose sponsored ads on social media drew me in, specifically clips of the step show scene.

I wanted to see when it debuted last year, but it didn’t happen. I wasn’t even able to catch the limited screenings at certain movie theaters around the city. Blow is a beautiful, lyrical writer, but sometimes I felt like I was held hostage in long chapters. The first chapter was nearly 40 pages. He’s thorough in painting the picture of where he grew up and what he experienced. An engrossing memoir and opera.