Seven Years Ago, He Was Working at Chipotle. He Just Sang Opera On the National Mall.

Anthony D. Anderson was fired from Chipotle seven years ago. Today he's the future of opera.

By Petula Dvorak | The Washington Post

On his return to Washington, Anthony D. Anderson faced the Lincoln Memorial, scanning the sprawling crowd and the orchestra behind him.

It’s been seven years since he was a teenager fired for making burritos too slowly at a Chipotle in D.C., a kid with an astonishing talent in something that perplexed his family and friends — opera.

“Standing here, near the steps where Marian Anderson sang,” he said on Saturday as he got ready to sing Puccini. “This is so special.”

He has no relation to the contralto who famously sang in front of the Lincoln Memorial 85 years ago after she was banned from a concert hall because of her race. But they share talent and grit and a barrier-breaking place in our nation’s fraught history.

Read the full story in The Washington Post.

Photo by Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post