- Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Trudy Gallant-Stokes, sitting in for Stephen Henderson.

A real life story about racial discrimination and wrongful convictions is coming to the Detroit Opera stage.

The Central Park Five opera tells the story of five African American and Latino teenagers falsely accused and convicted of assaulting a white female jogger in New York Central Park in 1989.

The performances are May 10th, 16th, and 18th at the Detroit Opera House.

Joining me now is the director of the Detroit Production, Nataki Garrett.

Welcome to "American Black Journal."

- Oh, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

- So this is a really unique concept and theme to have such a controversial and well remembered story in opera form.

Tell me about the backstory and how that came to be.

- Well, I'll tell you first that, you know, opera tends to be a pretty contemporary form.

So when the classical operas were written, they were contemporary in their day.

And so we have to always think about that as a form that allows for the continual telling of stories that are happening to people in this moment.

I'm not sure when this opera was first commissioned, but I think it was commissioned by the Long Beach Opera.

Anthony Davis is the composer.

The book was written by Richard Wesley.

And I think the beautiful thing about this as a modem for storytelling is this idea that the music can carry a lot of the emotional weight of the story.

I'm sure many of your viewers saw Ava DuVernay's film, "When They See Us," and there's a lot of, you know, emotional weight in that.

Imagine that being transformed into music.

And so there's something about the music and word together that sticks with you, that really does touch your empathy and your emotions in a way that watching a story can do it.

But there's something about the music that Koreys you there.

- So talk just a little bit about the story.

It was obviously a very poignant news story in '89 and a tragic story that had an interesting ending, but perhaps younger people might not know about it.

- Yeah, so in 1989, there was a lot of changeover in New York City.

So it's sort of the beginning of what would lead to, you know, the early '90s in New York.

And there was a lot of transformation in the Central Park, the upper Central Park West area.

And so you're looking at these neighborhoods that are converging, you know, this area that was Harlem.

Harlem starts to move uptown a little bit more, but these neighborhoods are still occupied by people who've been there for generations.

And there are new occupants that are coming in and bringing with them the things that they do.

And so in 1989, a white woman was jogging through the upper west side of Central Park and was assaulted.

And that night, several young Black teenagers were hauled into the precinct.

And within a few hours, they were charged with the crime.

And so what happened is a real miscarriage of justice.

The district attorney and the police officers and detectives at that moment decided that these were the five, that they were the ones that did it and got these young men, these boys, really, to admit to a crime that they didn't do.

- Forced confession.

- Yes.

After being held for several hours not being able to see their parents, no access to food or water, no access to the bathroom, they were held, and then really kind of pushed into, coerced into giving these confessions.

And once those confessions were received, both via videotape and also written confessions, the DA had their case.

- And it took years for them to be exonerated.

- Seven years for...

The first seven actually went through their seven years.

The oldest of the group received 13 years.

And so four were let out of prison after seven years.

They served their full sentences.

And Korey Wise was imprisoned with the perpetrator who admitted to the crime after he had gone through a series of transformations that led him to, I guess a space of confession.

- Amazing.

- And, you know, literally, he said that he found God, and that's why he confessed.

And the district attorney and the detective of the original case both fought very hard to hold the case against these boys, even though this other person admitted to the crime.

And so Korey Wise was allowed to leave prison, I think, six years after.

So I think he served 11 of the 13 years before he was let out of prison.

- So I could see that music, like you said, could tell a compelling story like that because I think people do think of operas being, you know, old stories from long ago, but there certainly have been some recent operas from Malcolm X and other topics that have told more contemporary stories.

So talk about the cast too.

- Sure.

Let me just talk about Anthony Davis first.

So Anthony Davis is the same composer who composed Malcolm X.

So, he composed The Central Park Five.

We have this tremendous dynamic cast of people who were deeply committed to making sure that this story is told in this amazing way.

And I directed this opera at Portland Opera, and Detroit Opera really loved that production.

And so they brought me along with a couple of the performers from that production here to Detroit, and then hired a cast of very well-known, world-renowned artists to fill in the cast that did not come with the production.

And so it's really, I mean, also, Anthony Davis worked on the orchestration for a much larger orchestra because Detroit Opera is one of the premier opera houses.

And so there's so much amazing new things that are coming with this production.

These really talented performers and this new orchestration is really going to knock it out of the park.

- Excellent.

So touch on who those other performers are and a little bit about your background.

- So, rather than go through all the names of the performers, you can go right to Detroit Opera site.

A couple of these performers have been with this production since the very beginning.

So the person who's playing, who's now the current president of the United States, who wrote himself into the story of The Central Park Five by purchasing an ad in the New York Times and publicly calling for the death penalty to persecute these boys.

- I remember.

- And so we have the person who played that originally at the Long Beach Opera version of this.

And then a couple of the performers, one of them who played Korey Wise for Portland Opera and also is here in Detroit.

So there are some pretty amazing people who actually have a long history with this production.

- So what do you want people to bring away from this experience?

Because I think that's what it's going to be.

It's gonna be an experience, not just like going to an opera.

I'm sure there's going to be so many emotions and feelings involved.

- Well, this is our story.

This is a story about, you know, five young Black and brown youths, you know, that happened in 1989, but it's happening to people right now.

You know, people who are being falsely incarcerated for crimes they did not commit.

I think the most important thing about the story is to understand what they went through, but also to understand that they were exonerated for their crimes.

- Very important.

- And so there is, the aftermath of the story is really about joy and it's about what happens, what do you do with your life after you have been put through something so traumatic and treacherous.

- And one has become a very activist politician, as I recall.

- That's right, that's right.

In this neighborhood, in New York.

And so... And they're all doing their own thing.

And they're in the middle of a defamation trial against the current president who still continues to pursue this idea that they were guilty even though they were exonerated of their crimes and the actual perpetrator admitted to their crimes.

- Unbelievable.

So you have a wonderful venue, three performances, and what else should people know?

- It opens on the 10th, which is the day before Mother's Day, the 10th of May, and closes on the 18th.

- Great Mother's Day gift.

- Yes, that's right.

Detroit Opera.

And you can go to their website to purchase tickets.

- And like you said, that venue and the orchestra pit, just, you know, the acoustics, everything, makes it wonderful.

- It's a lovely space, and we're excited to remount this in this particular space because of the size and the scope, but also because Detroit, there were so many Black people in Detroit, and it's really important that our audience shows up.

Everybody should come, but it'll be quite impactful to be in a house, you know, with the majority of us in the audience.

- Yes, absolutely.

Well, thank you for bringing it to Detroit.

We're very excited, and I'm sure it'll be well supported here.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me.