The Metropolitan Opera: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Overview

Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking opera, which premiered in 1986, arrives at the Met at long last. Robert O’Hara, who was nominated for a Tony Award in 2020 for his direction of Slave Play, oversees a new staging that imagines Malcolm as an everyman whose story transcends time and space. A cast of breakout artists bring to life the operatic retelling of Malcolm X’s life. Baritone Will Liverman, who triumphed in the Met premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, sings Malcolm. Soprano Leah Hawkins plays his mother, Louise; mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel is his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson portrays Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Kazem Abdullah conducts the newly revised score, which provides a layered, jazz-inflected setting for the esteemed writer Thulani Davis’s libretto.

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