Composer discusses ‘Josh Gibson Story’ at MTL Library program
Daniel Sonenberg, right, discusses “The Summer King – The Josh Gibson Story” at Mt. Lebanon Public Library, joined by Sean Gibson, Josh’s great-grandson.
Mt. Lebanon resident Liam DeLuca, 8, a cast member of “The Summer King,” sits with Sean Gibson.
Josh Gibson’s Hall of Fame plaque states he hit “almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball during his 17-year career.” Hank Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth’s previous Major League record in 1974, hit 755 home runs.
Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves is making her Pittsburgh Opera debut in “The Summer King.”
As an internationally renowned operatic mezzo-soprano, Denyce Graves has sung roles written by the likes of 19th-century masters Georges Bizet and Ferdinand Lemaire.
When she met contemporary composer Daniel Sonenberg, she had to ask about the not-so-traditional subject of his first opera.
”I gave her the answer that I always give, which is that I was interested in baseball from the time I was a kid and I was interested in the history of the game,” he said. “And there’s something about Negro Leagues history that just kind of spoke to me.”
Graves was impressed enough with the subject to agree to sing the female lead in the world premiere of “The Summer King – The Josh Gibson Story,” Sonenberg’s ode to the Hall of Famer, as presented by the Pittsburgh Opera in four performances starting April 29.
The composer from Portland, Maine, joined Sean Gibson, great-grandson of the legendary slugger, and representatives of the opera company for a recent program about the production at Mt. Lebanon Public Library.
“His story really spoke to me as one that needed to be told as an opera,” Sonenberg explained. “What I think the genre does is tell emotional stories in a very visceral way, and to take lived experience and allow an audience to kind of climb into the emotion of these events that are part of history.”
History records Josh Gibson, who played primarily for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays during the 1930s and ’40s, as perhaps the best hitter of his era. But he was unable to compare his skills directly to other contemporary greats because of the color of his skin.
“There’s the tragic fact of his life that he died at 35 years old, and he was a hugely productive baseball player up until, basically, his death,” Sonenberg said.
Gibson succumbed to a stroke in January 1947, just three months before Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers, opening the door for the stars of the Negro Leagues to join him.
“There’s no doubt that had Josh stayed alive three more years,” Sonenberg explained, “he would have probably played in the Major Leagues.”
The Majors’ top star, then and to this day, died just a year after Gibson.
”We always laugh a little bit when we say, ‘Babe Ruth was the white Josh Gibson.’ Actually, he wasn’t, because he didn’t play three games a day, ride on a bus, not be able to go to a restaurant or a hotel,” Sonenberg said about the issues African-American athletes faced at the time. “There was this incredible triumph over adversity, the likes of which Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio and all these other players didn’t know anything about.”
Teaching about such facets of history is one of the many aspects of the Hill District-based Josh Gibson Foundation, which provides a variety of educational and athletic opportunities for Pittsburgh-area youngsters. Sean Gibson serves as executive director, carrying on the “legacy of greatness and accomplishment embodied by” his great-grandfather.
“If you Google Josh Gibson, most of the stories you’re going to hear are about baseball,” he said during the Mt. Lebanon Public Library program. “So this is what the opera will bring out, the opportunity to tell stories of what I say is the man outside the uniform.”
For example, and also in the realm of tragedy, Gibson’s 17-year-old wife, Helen, died while giving birth to a boy and girl.
“Actually, Josh wanted the doctor to save his wife and let the twins though,” Sean Gibson said. “But it was already too late.”
The boy, incidentally, was Josh Gibson Jr., Sean’s grandfather.
As for “The Summer King,” it represents the first world premiere ever staged in the 78-year history of the Pittsburgh Opera.
“I think opera has this way to tap into our emotions,” Sonenberg said. “There is just this direct line to the emotional core to a story and the ability to make an audience really, really connect.”