Sing for Your Life

Starred review from June 27, 2016
In 2011, Ryan Speedo Green won a national competition sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Yet, as journalist Bergner (God of the Rodeo) points out in this gripping and inspiring mix of biography and cultural history, Green’s journey to international acclaim as an opera star was not an easy one. Raised in a home marred by domestic violence and his father’s abandonment of the family, Green grows up being shuttled from a trailer park to a shack in a neighborhood riddled with drugs and violence. He has difficulties in school and grows more and more unruly, until the moment he threatens his mother with a knife. Transported to a juvenile psychiatric detention center so he won’t be a threat to others or himself, Green discovers music as the force that calms his anger. When he returns to high school, he enrolls in the music program, meeting up with a teacher who takes him under his wing and helps Green develop his vocal talents. On a class visit to the Met, Green declares to his teacher that he’s going to sing there one day. Bergner chronicles the auditions and vocal contests as well as the struggles Green faces as a black man entering a musical world that is mostly white, delivering a moving portrait of a young man who succeeds, along with the help of encouraging teachers.

July 1, 2016
The biography of an emerging African-American opera singer who overcame a tough Southern childhood.New York Times Magazine contributor Bergner (What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire, 2013, etc.) details the life of Ryan Speedo Green, who rose to performance prominence after a harrowing childhood in southeastern Virginia. Described as a physically imposing figure at 6 feet 5 inches and over 300 pounds, Green grew up with little adolescent ambition, raised by a largely absent part-Seminole bodybuilder father and an Air Force veteran mother who grew as abusive and violent to her children as her own romantic partners were to her. Life in their low-income housing project became troublesome for the young, increasingly uncontrollable Green, who, at age 12, pulled a knife on his brother and his mother and was sent to a juvenile detention facility. During his high school years, the family lived in similar squalor, but as Green was steered toward chorus classes to obtain easy high school credits, he ended up uncovering his truest voice. Bergner captures the essence of his subject's desperate childhood even though Green terminated many interviews due to the still-palpable pain and misery of his past. Running alongside Green's childhood is the story of his more recent ascent up the ranks of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions competition; the author spotlights both the struggles and the triumphs associated with Green's exhaustive vocal training. The interweaving of both eras of Green's life doesn't always cohere, causing a meandering narrative. Bergner works hard to establish momentum during Green's tumultuous childhood--and finds some success--but when coupled with the details of his opera aspirations, the effect is jarring. Still, as Green's past and present finally meet in conclusion, his prideful performance at the Met (with his father in joyful attendance) seemingly trumps a good portion of childhood trauma. A disjointed structure occasionally hobbles this swiftly written life story of music, forgiveness, and resilience.

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July 1, 2016
One doesn't usually think of opera as the profession that lifts a struggling black teenager out of povertythat journey is more often aligned with football or hip-hopbut such was the case for Ryan Green. Growing up, Green had a violent relationship with his mother that created a hostile home life, but his quiet charisma drew a number of mentors to him. Bergner (What Do Women Want, 2013) brings Green and those mentors to vivid, heroic life as he follows the singer as he auditions for the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. Though Green becomes an apprentice, there are still more obstacles: a career in opera is exceedingly difficult for singers of color, since in both the casting room and in the audience, opera is too often seen as a white thing. Bergner's in-the-room perspective is occasionally confusing, as he re-creates conversations from various points in Green's life, yet is only apparently present for parts; finally, though, this is a small thing. Bergner's inspirational biography has instant appeal, and, with the added attention to vocal techniques and rehearsals, readers with an interest in music will be especially rewarded.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2016

This story begins with Ryan Speedo Green in the semifinal round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, an annual competition to discover promising young singers in the United States and Canada. What follows is a meditation on race in America mixed with the story of Green, who discovered his love of song while growing up in low-income housing and then a trailer park in rural Virginia. The book, which expands upon a 2011 New York Times Magazine article about Green by contributing writer Bergner, provides a masterly crafted and unique portrait of adulthood as well as a sense of the challenges that Green has overcome on his journey from solitary confinement as a teenager to a stint with the Vienna State Opera. VERDICT While fans of opera will find this to be a captivating biography of one of the most decorated bass baritones, this highly recommended narrative is also about a man who conquers his personal demons and limitations to break racial barriers in one of the oldest cultural institutions in the world.--John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2016

This story begins with Ryan Speedo Green in the semifinal round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, an annual competition to discover promising young singers in the United States and Canada. What follows is a meditation on race in America mixed with the story of Green, who discovered his love of song while growing up in low-income housing and then a trailer park in rural Virginia. The book, which expands upon a 2011 New York Times Magazine article about Green by contributing writer Bergner, provides a masterly crafted and unique portrait of adulthood as well as a sense of the challenges that Green has overcome on his journey from solitary confinement as a teenager to a stint with the Vienna State Opera. VERDICT While fans of opera will find this to be a captivating biography of one of the most decorated bass baritones, this highly recommended narrative is also about a man who conquers his personal demons and limitations to break racial barriers in one of the oldest cultural institutions in the world.--John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2016

Ryan Speedo Green had a hard upbringing, spending time in juvenile detention, but pulled his life together and was so floored by a performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera that he decided to become an opera singer. Now he strides the Met's stage. Not just for opera fans.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.