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.”
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