By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
Becoming an opera singer is a difficult dream to achieve with success being even harder than making it on an NFL team. Couple it with the challenges of coming from a low-income housing project in Virginia and having a temper that lands you in juvenile detention, and well it would appear that Ryan Speedo Green would never make it the stage of The Metropolitan Opera.
But nine years after seeing his first opera at the age of 15, bass-bartonie Speedo was performing at The Met. His journey is chronicled in the book “Speedo Green: Sing For Your Life,” which he will discuss Thursday, March 26, at DeVos Performance Hall, 303 Monroe Ave. SW. Joining Speedo will be his author Daniel Bergner.
“When I was in fourth grade, nine to eleven years old, I was in a class with six of seven of the worst kids in the school district in southeastern Virginia. I was taught by this five-foot one, tiny blonde curly-hair lady..,” said Speedo during a 2016 interview with Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show.”
“The first thing I did on the first day of school was throw my desk at her and telling her that I would not be taught by a white woman. And instead of sending me to the office for my mother to take me home, she took my chair away and said you can learn from the floor and when you are ready to learn from your desk you can have both your chair and your desk back.”
This was the first tough love lesson that Speedo had ever received.
“She made it a point to teach everyone in the class, of all ethnicities, the Martin Luther King speech, ‘I Have a Dream speech,’” Speedo said during “The Daily Mail” interview. “And she made all of us learn it and memorize it and say it almost every day because she wanted all of us to know that in her class you would not be judged by the color of your skin but by the content of your character, and that stayed with me.
However, after leaving the “safety” of that classroom, Speedo continued to lash out, threatening to stab his mother and brother. He was sent to juvenile detention, landing in solitary confinement for lashing out at the other inmates.
“When I got out, I made the decision to surround myself with not only the right people but the right environment,” Speedo said, adding he sought out extra curricular activities, joining football and even Latin Club because it was so different from his home life.
“I took choir as an easy elective so I thought I would have this amazing football career, obviously that didn’t work out,” he said with a laugh.
Instead, at the age of 15, Speedo would see his first opera at The Metropolitan Opera.
“I thought opera was something only a white person could do,” Speedo said to Trevor. “I thought it was this big fat Viking woman breaking windows based off of cartoons.
“For me, I saw the opera, the opera was ‘Carman’ at The Metropolitan Opera, and what made it so monumental to me which changed my life, was the person singing the lead role, the title role, was an African American mezzo soprano by the name of Denyce Graves.”
At that moment, Speedo said he knew what he wanted to do with his life, sing opera, and nine years later he accomplished that performing as Mandarin in Puccini’s “Turnandot” in the 2012-2013 Met season.
The March 26 presentation, which is part of “The Series: Creative Expressions of African-American Culture” will feature Speedo and Bergner discussing Speedo’s journey from violence and despair to performing with one of the world’s most elite arts institutions. The presentation will include a live performance by Speedo of a short selection of arias followed by a question-and-answer session with Speedo and Daniel.
Tickets start at $40 and are available through DeVos Performance Hall at ticketmaster.com or call 800-745-3000.
