As a high school student in Berkeley, Calif., Nataki Garrett was deeply affected by a 1989 criminal case thousands of miles away involving the assault and rape of a Central Park jogger. 

The violent crime and allegations targeting Black and Latino teen boys were the topic of conversation with her parents and their friends. None of them believed that the five teens convicted had committed the crime, Garrett said. 

“I remember sitting around the table with some of the most remarkable thinkers of our time, like Barbara Christian, the first Black woman to be tenured as a professor at UC Berkeley, and a lot of her UC Berkeley colleagues who were my mom’s friends,” she said. “They were unpacking the case like, ‘This can’t happen’ and ‘There’s no way these boys did this.’” 

Thirty-six years later, Garrett is director of “The Central Park Five,” an opera based on the crime that led to the wrongful conviction of Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise. The teens were sent to prison based partly on police-coerced confessions, and each spent between six and 13 years behind bars for charges including attempted murder, rape and assault. In 2002, the men were exonerated after Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and serial rapist, confessed to the crime. 

The opera premiered at the Long Beach Opera in 2019, and composer Anthony Davis won a Pulitzer Prize for the production the following year. The opera is the latest work revisiting the story (now known as the Exonerated Five). Filmmaker Ken Burns released the documentary “The Central Park Five” in 2012, while filmmaker Ava DuVernay released her Netflix miniseries, “When They See Us,” in 2019. 

There are two more chances to see Garrett’s show at the Detroit Opera House, including 7:30 p.m. on Friday and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets begin at $30. Guests can also check out pre-opera talks at 6:30 p.m. Friday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday with Detroit Opera Director of Community and Audience Engagement Arthur White, conductor Anthony Parnther, and Naomi André, the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor in Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Garrett, who also directed Portland Opera’s production, said the case continues to be relevant with thousands of people in the United States and around the world who continue to be wrongfully convicted. She cited the mass incarceration crisis happening in El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s government imposed a state of emergency to quell rampant gang violence in 2022. Around 80,000 people have been incarcerated since then, including thousands of innocent people who have been locked up with no legal recourse.

“This is something that continues to happen, which is why you have to tell the stories to remind people that we’re still in the struggle and we still have to fight for justice, not just for ourselves, but because we want to live in a just society,” Garrett said. 

Beyond the five men, the cast includes the boys’ parents, an assistant district attorney, a character called “The Masque,” and President Donald Trump, who in 1989 took out full-page ads in New York City’s major newspapers, calling for the return of the death penalty. 

More than 30 years later, Trump continues to be connected to the case. Last month, a federal judge rejected his efforts to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against him by the five men. Salaam, Santana, Richardson, McCray, and Wise sued Trump last fall during the presidential campaign, accusing him of making “false and defamatory statements” about them during a Sept. 10 debate in Philadelphia with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, reported NPR. 

Music is the message 

While adapting the jogger case into an opera may seem strange, Garrett said opera is the perfect fit to tell the story of the Exonerated Five, saying the medium often employs an epic form of storytelling about the common person. 

“The reason why I am attracted to this as an opera is because there is something undeniable in the quality of music that penetrates past any other kind of barrier, whether it’s your identity barriers, economic barriers, political barriers, ideology barriers,” she said. “Music doesn’t care about those barriers. The carrier that the opera provides is, while the story is still very difficult, music reminds your spirit that it’s seeking something hopeful and joyful. It looks for a way to relate on these basic human levels, and Anthony Davis is so phenomenal at doing that.” 

Garrett said the biggest change from the Portland production to Detroit is the full-size orchestra that accompanies the cast. Parnther has conducted the scores for films like “Sinners,” “Nope” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” 

“We’re so lucky to have him in the opera world,” Garrett said about Parnther. “He has the whole world in his hand, because literally you’re watching his hand hold the performers and all of the members of the orchestra.” 

Garrett said she’s enjoyed working with the cast, which includes tenor Freddie Ballentine as Richardson, tenor Chaz’men Williams-Ali as Santana, baritone Markel Reed as Salaam, baritone Justin Hopkins as McCray and Nathan Granner as Wise.

It was a mini reunion for Garrett and Granner, who also portrayed Wise in the Portland and Long Beach productions. Granner said while the role is an extreme challenge, it’s also an honor. 

“In a lot of respects, what I’m trying to do is be Korey and who he was,” Granner said. “I’m very protective of Korey. When I go out there…I want to give as much of him as I can, but also for all of those people who have been freed.” 

To prepare for the role, Granner watched The Central Park Five documentary and When They See Us. He also met with Gary Tyler, a former prisoner who spent 41 years in a maximum security prison in Louisiana, 20 of which on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. 

“Meeting him and hearing his story gave me a grounding for Korey and being in this opera,” Granner said. 

Granner also had the opportunity to meet Wise at an American Civil Liberties Union event around the time of the Long Beach premiere.

Granner is happy to share the opera stage with other Black men. He and the other four cast members have bonded on and off the stage. 

“We all bond over these stories and you see, just within a few weeks, we become really close and that’s one of the best things about an opera, and that’s also one of the best things about being in an opera with more than one Black person,” Granner said. “It’s really fantastic to be in the community and be able to relax a little bit.”