Like The Blind Side set in the world of opera, this is the touching, triumphant story of a young black man's journey from violence and despair to one of the world's most elite cultural institutions.
Ryan Speedo Green had a tough upbringing amid the urban wastelands of southeastern Virginia. His family lived in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive.
At the age of twelve, Ryan was placed in solitary confinement in Virginia's juvenile detention center of last resort for threatening to kill his mother. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with seemingly little hope for the future.
Thirteen years later, in 2011, at the age of twenty-five, Ryan won a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out 1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles at the Met and Europe's most...