‘Figaro Up, Figaro Down’ Documentary Sets DOC NYC Premiere

By Tom Whitfield

OperaWire reports that “Figaro Up, Figaro Down” will make its New York premiere at DOC NYC on Nov. 17 and 19, 2026. Both screenings will take place at Village East by Angelika. Baritone Tim Blevins is set to attend in person.

The film has prior festival recognition. OperaWire says “Figaro Up, Figaro Down” won the “Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary” at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The announcement does not date the award or identify a jury citation.

Those facts provide firm points of entry. They do not amount to a full festival history. OperaWire names no distributor, producer, runtime, ticket price or wider release plan. The notice also includes no direct quotation from Blevins, Soriano or festival representatives. For prospective viewers, the omissions leave basic logistics and the film’s route beyond DOC NYC unclear.

A 10-year record of one singer

Directed by Javid Soriano, the documentary follows Blevins, whom OperaWire identifies as a Juilliard-trained baritone experiencing homelessness in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The film was shot over 10 years.

OperaWire says the film shows Blevins singing in the city’s streets, his struggle with addiction and his efforts to reconnect with the children he left behind. It does not specify the children’s ages, the nature of the separation, the duration of homelessness or the point when these circumstances began.

The 10-year production period gives Soriano time to record change over time. The report does not say how often he filmed Blevins, how the footage was funded or how he assembled the final film. Viewers therefore cannot use the announcement alone to separate the order of events from the film’s framing.

The source also does not explain what the street performances mean within the film, or how addiction and family separation connect them to the larger argument. Any reading of the film’s purpose would remain provisional until the screening.

A New York career in contrast

OperaWire says Blevins built his opera career in New York, where he also started a family. That background gives the premiere a specific setting. The city where he built his career and began his family will host the screenings about his hardship in San Francisco.

The report does not list his roles, companies, teaching positions or the dates of that career. It therefore establishes the outline rather than the scale of his previous life. Nor does it date his move from New York to San Francisco. The available evidence supports a narrower claim: the documentary sets a Juilliard-trained opera singer’s New York history against homelessness, addiction and estrangement in the Tenderloin.

OperaWire does not describe the premiere as a comeback. Any reading of Blevins’s return in those terms would go beyond the announcement.

What does the New York premiere change?

For New York opera audiences, the practical change is access. They will be able to see a 10-year documentary at Village East by Angelika on Nov. 17 and 19, with Blevins set to attend. The premiere also places him in the city where he built his opera career, an encounter whose personal meaning the announcement does not explain.

OperaWire provides no screening times, ticket details, panel, other participants or information about wider distribution. It does not say whether DOC NYC will screen a new cut. Blevins’s attendance gives the event a personal focus, but attendance alone says nothing about the film’s argument or production.

The screening will show whether Soriano’s 10-year record turns Blevins’s street singing into a sustained argument about opera, addiction and family; the announcement cannot answer that.