In the middle of “The Ritual of Breath Is the Rite to Resist,” an opera about the police killing of Eric Garner, a singer portraying his daughter reflects on his famous final words: “I can’t breathe.”
“I can’t let go,” she sings. “I hear his words again and again. A scream in a dream that escapes as a gasp.”
A decade after Garner’s death, “Ritual of Breath,” which comes to Lincoln Center’s summer festival on Friday, aims to shine light on Garner’s legacy and the broader problem of police violence in the United States.
The opera, composed by Jonathan Berger to a libretto by the poet Vievee Francis, focuses on Garner’s daughter, Erica, as she grapples with the pain, guilt and anger she feels over her father’s death. But “Ritual of Breath” also spotlights the stories of other Black people killed by the police, and issues a spirited call for empathy and change from performers including a 90-member choir spread across the stage and in the audience.
“It’s not enough to say that someone died on the street — to reduce them to a chalk outline,” Francis said. “If we don’t know who that was, if we don’t see them as human, no difference will be made. Art allows us to feel that life.”
The creators of “Ritual of Breath,” which premiered in 2022, hope that the opera will bring fresh attention to social injustice in American society. Niegel Smith, the show’s director, quoted a line from the opera’s final scene in explaining its message: “When a brother’s breath fails, we pick it up. When a sister’s breath fails, we pick it up.”
“When those around us are struggling, we step in, we help out,” Smith added. “We’ve got each other, and we have within us all the many ways we can keep breathing and supporting and showing up for one another.”
Garner died in July 2014, at 43, after a struggle with a police officer who held him in a chokehold on a sidewalk in New York. He quickly became a symbol in the national movement against police violence. A cellphone video of the incident replayed on screens around the world, and his final words became a rallying cry.
Outraged by Garner’s death, Berger, a Stanford professor, began speaking with Enrico Riley, an art professor at Dartmouth College, about ways to respond. (Riley’s paintings and drawings are featured throughout the 75-minute work.)
They turned to Francis for the libretto. She decided to focus the work on the journey of Garner’s daughter.
“Opera can hold tragedy,” she said. “This is an American tragedy. These stories should be told with the largess they deserve.”
Berger incorporated the rhythms and sounds of Garner’s final struggle with the police into the score, which draws on jazz and pays homage to artists like Marvin Gaye.
“We wanted to create something not just about murder and violence, but also about activism,” Berger said. “The idea was really to engage the audience.”
At Lincoln Center, which is devoting this year’s summer festival to themes of civic participation, the work will be performed in Damrosch Park in a concert version.
A dancer, Trebien Pollard, will represent Garner’s spirit, and a saxophonist, Greg Ward, will repeat “I can’t breathe” from the stage. In one scene, Isaiah Robinson, the lead chorus member, recites a list of other Black men and women who have died during encounters with the police — Tanisha Anderson, Samuel Dubose and George Floyd among them — as Erica Garner records them in a notebook.
The soprano Neema Bickersteth, who plays Erica Garner in the opera, but also herself at times, said the work’s subject matter could be overwhelming.
“Sometimes my heart or spirit starts flailing,” she said. “I take a moment and recognize that it is hard and important to honor these people, and to also honor myself. Then I feel ready to continue.”
During rehearsals this week, mothers whose children had been killed by the police, including Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, visited the “Ritual of Breath” team. Carr said that she still remembered her son’s “smile, his gentleness, his love of people, his love of holidays like Christmas and his birthday, how he loved his children, how he confided in me.”
She said it was bittersweet to watch the opera, which brought back the pain of losing her son, as well as her granddaughter. (Erica Garner, who became an activist against police brutality, died in 2017, at 27, after an asthma episode precipitated a major heart attack.)
“My heart is warm, although it takes me back to that fatal day,” Carr said. “This has to keep getting put out there, so people will see this is not just a news story; this is my life, and I have to continue, even though I never get over it.”
At the rehearsal, the cast, crew and guests took turns describing their connections to the opera. Carr said she was there because “there are thousands of others who have suffered the same loss.”
“We still have to continue to show up,” she said. “We have to continue to fight.”
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