Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended
"...Coupled with conversation with his boyhood self Char'es-Baby, movingly rendered by Benjamin Preacely, Liverman's performance truly has an aching vulnerability, as if his character is lost on the Lyric's huge stage, rushing through set designer Allen Moyer's remarkable physical renderings of childhood, college hazing, expectations, abuse. Livermore is heading to a place as hard to sing about as it is to reach."
Chicago Sun Times - Highly Recommended
"...Blanchard's most ingenious idea is inserting a kind of jazz quartet into the augmented pit orchestra of nearly 60 musicians, with this foursome functioning much like the continuo in baroque repertoire. Particularly notable is the lively, free-flowing playing of pianist Stu Mindeman and the work of Jeff "Tain" Watts on drum set."
Chicago On the Aisle - Highly Recommended
"...There are so many ways this show is a rarity that it’s hard to find a place to start. It’s as grand as a grand opera can be, and yet it’s in English, and thoroughly American, requiring no knowledge of royal bloodlines or anything European. Its dance scene is a show-stopper, but there’s not a toe-shoe in sight. There’s a chicken-plucking scene and a frat-house hazing, and the starring dramatic soprano plays an exhausted mother of five."
WTTW - Highly Recommended
"...The opera's co-directors - James Robinson and Camille A. Brown - keep the many elements of the story moving smoothly on Allen Moyer's set of movable cubes (with lighting by Christopher Akerlind). But it is Brown, who also created the production's original choreography ("revived" here by Jay Staten) who sets the stage on fire with a sensational ensemble of 12 male dancers who variously haunt Charles with a swirling sexual exorcism, animate the brutal ritual fraternity initiation and carry off a bravura step-dance routine at a basketball game."
Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended
"...Fire Shut Up in My Bones is a uniquely Black American story with Blanchard's music evoking the subtropical sultriness of Louisiana. The South is also a character in this story with the set design by Allen Moyer and the lighting by Christopher Akerlind lending an eerie feel. Greg Emetaz's projection designs of shack-like homes and trash heaps took me back to Benton, Louisiana, as I saw it when I was a child. Imagery of fire, smoke, and abandoned homes creates a powerful experience. It is healing to see a Black man's story told with such grace and beauty where it has been all but forbidden to feel or express emotion. I highly recommend Fire Shut Up in My Bones. There is gunfire, graphic language and sexuality portrayed, so be prepared to explain some things if you bring young children."
Picture This Post - Highly Recommended
"...If you, like this writer, are especially drawn to opera’s tight marriage of lyrics and melody as a vehicle to deliver an emotional message, Fire Shut Up in My Bones will leave you longing for a written copy of the libretto and a continuous loop recording. An instant classic, this is an opera you will likely want to see more than once."
