FIGARO UP, FIGARO DOWN

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Figaro Up, Figaro Down is the story of Tim Blevins—a Black opera singer whose undeniable gifts helped him conquer a world built to exclude him, only to be undone by demons he carried long before the curtains rose. His daily struggle in the Tenderloin, rendered in vérité cinematography, is interwoven with archival footage that tracks his unlikely ascent and the untimely unraveling that followed.

Tim hawks scavenged goods on a blanket, hustles to save for a single-room occupancy hotel, and belts out classics from Carmen for opera-goers who fill his change cup—wistfully recalling the times he sang on stages like theirs. Settled into a temporary room with his white rat Bella—the one constant in his life—he gathers the courage to call his dad on Father’s Day, who provides no comfort admonishing him for not yet contacting his estranged adult children, Joaquina and Max. He tries to build up the courage, discusses why facing his mistakes is so hard and ultimately, after dialing and redialing their numbers, numbs his grief the only way he knows how.

We trace his backstory: a hard-nosed father who groomed him for failure; an all-white school that deepened his isolation; a rare gift of perfect pitch that carried him—even sleepless and drug-addled— to a flawless in person test for Julliard. In school, Tim excelled even as he leaned on his substance abuse to carry him through times of stress. Marriage, two children, a career on the world’s greatest stages quickly followed. But soon, the same volatile behaviors that were celebrated on stage began to create a reputation backstage, earning him the nickname “Opera Bad Boy”. In an unbelievable live televised performance of Porgy and Bess from Lincoln Center—Tim bursts on stage after a multi-day binge, wild-eyed and electric, hitting every note in what has been heralded as the best embodiment of the plays villain, Crown.

The lowest of lows rushed up at him with remarkable force. At a climactic moment after failing to connect with his children due to unfair circumstances out of his control, we find Tim belting out “Credo in un Dio Crudel” (I Believe in a Cruel God) in a trash-choked alley like a tormented figure from German Expressionism. Tim will ultimately enter rehab, gets sober, and miraculously book a performance at Berkeley’s Greek Theater. Nearly buckling under the pressure of revealing the truth of his descent to his colleagues and family from the vulnerable position of a spotlight, he will sing “The Impossible Dream” before to try to earn one last chance as a sober man.

Tim will limp offstage—no longer the singer he once was, but confident in the man he is now: scarred, imperfect, but resolute. Afterward, he will push through throngs of new admirers to find his daughter Joaquina, and finally embrace her. 

With new found resolve Tim has improved his life, secured stable housing and developed healthy relationships with all of his family members. This is possible only because he accepts his demons are not foes that he could ever fully vanquish but as a part of him - negative voices he must contend with in his daily struggle to thrive.