A Deadly Night in the Boxing Ring Is Grist for an Evening at the Opera The grainy black and white footage is chilling. The fighter Emile Griffith pounds away at the head of his rival, Benny Paret, known as Kid, who lies limply against the ropes. Boxing fans around the country are watching on television. Finally, after a sickening interval, the referee intervenes. The Kid does not get up. "Paret goes down from complete exhaustion," the announcer Don Dunphy says. Actually, Paret is unconscious, his brain bleeding, and he will die 10 days later. An uproar about the violence of boxing will follow. Griffith will continue to fight halfheartedly and will rack up more championship rounds than almost any other boxer before retiring in 1977. A five-time champion in two weight classes, Griffith won the welterweight belt from Paret, lost it to him in a second bout and won it back on that fateful night in 1962 at Madison Square Garden. His story is now moving from the ring to the opera stage. The jazz trumpeter, band leader and composer Terence Blanchard is composing an opera based on Griffith's life called "Champion," with a libretto by the playwright Michael Cristofer. Opera Theater of St. Louis and Jazz Theater St. Louis have joined forces for the commission. It is dramatic stuff, but other fighters have died in the ring. What sets the Griffith story apart is one salient fact: Paret had taunted Griffith at their weigh-in and on previous occasions with a Spanish insult for "homosexual." "He called me a name," Griffith - who is 74 and suffers from dementia - told The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in 2005. So I did what I had to do. Yet Griffith always maintained that he never wanted to hurt Paret. He told that to Paret's son, when they met for the first time and embraced several years ago in an encounter arranged for a documentary. "I didn't want to kill no one," he says tearfully. But things happen. Gil Clancy, Griffith's trainer, discounted a connection between the gay slur and the outcome of the bout. In an oral history about trainers, "In the Corner" by Dave Anderson, he said he told Griffith, "Anytime you're inside with this guy, you've got to punch until he either falls or grabs you or the referee stops you." Some have questioned why it took the referee, the respected Ruby Goldstein, so long to stop the fight. Griffith has never acknowledged being gay, but has said he has had relations with both sexes. He often went to gay bars. He was savagely beaten outside one in 1992. The opera makers have a lot of material to work with. Many articles have explored Griffith's life, and a burst of attention came with the documentary, by Dan Klores, which was released in 2005. "It's an incredibly complex moment, to have this nationally televised event in which one person is doing his job by hitting another person very hard and the results are as tragic as they are," Timothy O'Leary, the opera theater's general director, said. It raises all the kinds of questions that opera is especially suited to answer, or to explore. The chief question, he said, is "What does it mean to be a human being?" The opera will be performed next summer, directed by James Robinson, the opera theater's artistic director. Denyce Graves will sing the role of Emelda, Griffith's mother. Aubrey Allicock will play Young Emile and Arthur Woodley Old Emile. The story begins with Emile on his way to meet Paret's son. The opera presents different episodes of his life, each separated by the bell sounding a new round. Mr. O'Leary said the score calls for a full orchestra with jazz elements. "Yes, we get the final round of the match with Paret, which is set to unbelievable music," he said. "There's an aria right before the fight in which Emile asks himself,"What makes a man a man?" He asks,"Does love make you strong or make you weak?"" Mr. O'Leary said he expects Paret's son to come to the opera but not Paret's widow. As for Emile Griffith, his medical condition makes it unlikely. Mr. O'Leary said he recently visited the former boxer and told him about the opera. He said he was not sure if it registered. "During the course of the visit," Mr. O'Leary said, "he did smile."