oseph Specter was 6 when he took his first judo class.
As a teen growing up in Miami, Florida, in the 1980s, you had to know how to protect yourself so he studied Taekwando in high school, earning a second-degree black belt.
When he went on to college at Boston’s Tuft University, he was head instructor of the Taekwando Club, which probably raised a few eyebrows among his classmates at the nearby New England Conservatory of Music, where he was studying voice as part of a double-major program between the two institutions.
For the former opera singer who led Arizona Opera for eight seasons before leaving last June, fighting and singing are the throughlines of his life and his art.
Specter connects them in “Triângulo,” his mixed martial arts hybrid opera/musical theater work that will get its world premiere next April at Arizona Broadway Theatre in Peoria as part of the venue’s 20th anniversary season.
“Music, theater and fighting are these kind of eternal threads of human culture,” said Specter, who last spring became president and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale. “To be able to weave them together through the art form of storytelling through song, let’s call it, is just kind of this dream come true that synthesizes all these elements that have been present throughout most of my life.”
Specter flirted with the concept of an opera based around jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts back in 2016, but in 2017, he set it in motion over Rossini’s “Cinderella” and a cup of coffee.
“We were having a cup of coffee and (director Crystal Manich) was talking about all of these wonderful creative ideas she had for potential projects,” Specter recalled of that conversation with Manich, who was making her Arizona Opera directing debut. “I said … I’ve been thinking about this idea for about a year, and it’s a little crazy.”
Manich, who at the time was about a decade into her career directing operas, didn’t think the idea was all that crazy. She had never written a libretti before, but she wanted to start, and what better place than with an opera about fighting.
Not that Manich knew anything about Brazilian jiu-jitsu or MMA.
“I went away and did research … trying to understand, and I really fell in love with the art form,” she said, adding that she discovered a lot of parallels between her art and martial arts.
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Opera director and writer Crystal Manich wrote the libretto for “Triângulo.” After researching martial arts for the piece, “I really fell in love with the art form,” she says.
Ro Chittick
Within a few weeks, Manich, a Latiné director whose work crosses over into theater, opera and circus, came back with the first treatment for what would become “Triângulo.”
In the years since, “we’ve gone on a pretty big journey,” Specter said, as the story pivoted from a biopic based on a real-life martial artist to an all-original storyline of a young Latiné female fighter’s journey in the early days of MMA.
“We wanted to be female focused, and we wanted it to be at the time of transition in the '90s when MMA was really becoming prominent,” said Manich.
The production is set in Rio de Janeiro and Miami in the early 1990s as Esperança, a young Brazilian athlete, finds her way in the male-dominated world of Brazilian jiu-jitsu after being rejected by the country’s national volleyball team because she was too short.
She quickly finds success at home, which prompts her to strike out for Miami with her Cuban musician boyfriend, Guillermo. She wants to pursue a bigger stage to not only prove she can achieve greatness but also to save her brother. She is hoping the higher prizes will pay for her brother’s life-saving surgery.
Manich, who made her film directing debut with Arizona Opera’s “The Copper Queen” in 2021, wrote the libretto. Latin Grammy–nominated Cuban-American pianist and composer Martin Bejerano composed the score, drawing from Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian musical traditions alongside the soundscape of early-1990s pop, rock and dance music.
In the scenes set in Brazil, Bejerano tapped into bossa nova and samba alongside salsa to represent Guillermo. Once in Miami, Bejerano added trap music and influences of merengue, which “you would have heard all over Miami” in the 1990s, said Manich, calling the music “a love letter to the '90s.”
Specter described “Triângulo” as “a modern MMA opera in the same spirit as ‘Tommy’ or ‘Jesus Christ, Superstar’ are rock operas, or ‘Hadestown’.”
“For me, what that means is a level of emotionality in the storytelling, and it also relates to just how incredibly strong the score is,” he said. “It is a big vocal show, especially for Esperança, our heroine, and I think that we’re in a moment of time when the forms of musical theater and opera are blended together. There is no clear delineator between those two. They’re not too different for me.”
Renowned Russian ballet director and jiu-jitsu black belt George Birkadze choreographed the fight scenes with input from the legendary MMA coach Greg Jackson, whose Jackson Wink MMA Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is considered one of the world’s top MMA training centers.
Specter said the goal is to create “realistic as possible” fight scenes because the fighting itself is so central to the storytelling." The musical will include real fighting in an MMA ring on stage.
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Joseph Specter, right, with martial arts trainer Greg Jackson. Specter’s mixed martial arts hybrid opera/musical theater work will get its world premiere next April in Arizona.
Ro Chittick
“We really want to bring out the realism, not so much to be something that is gory or violent, but more so that the excitement level and the sense of risk is felt,” he explained. “There’s so much technique that’s involved in martial arts that we really wanted to make sure we were expanding the look of the technique in such a way that people, even if they’ve been uninitiated to mixed martial arts, could really have a sense of what’s going on.”
Specter said they will put out a national casting call this spring for the principal roles.
“Esperança is such an iconic role and there’s going to be a lot of complexity in this show in general in terms of movement,” he said. “So having our principal casting underway in the spring will be essential.”
“Triângulo” joins a small handful of operas based on sports figures including Peter Stopschinski’s “Bum Phillips” based on the legendary NFL coach’s memoirs; Terrence Blanchard’s “Champion,” about African-American welterweight boxer Emile Griffith; Daniel Sonenberg’s “The Summer King,” based on Negro Leagues’ power hitter Josh Gibson; Frank Proto’s “Shadowboxer,” about the legendary Joe Louis; and Davis Miller’s “The Tao of Muhammad Ali.”
One of the earliest sports-related operas was William Schuman’s 1953 opera “The Mighty Casey,” centered on baseball.
Joseph Specter talks to the audience attending a workshop last year of the new opera/musical theater work “Triângulo” at Jackson Wink MMA Academy in Albuquerque. The musical will include real fighting in an MMA ring on stage.
Ro Chittick
“Triângulo” will run from April 16-May 2, 2027, at Arizona Broadway Theatre, 7701 W. Paradise Lane in Peoria. Tickets go on sale July 13 through azbroadway.org.