The revival of Anthony Davis’ opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which debuted over forty years ago, has a surprising, futuristic twist: Throughout the whole play, a spaceship hovers over the stage, and names—both well-known and maybe not—scroll over the vessel’s curves.
The Black civil rights leader’s life is chronicled in the Met Opera production, which debuted at Lincoln Center. It begins in his early years in Michigan and ends with his shooting death at the age of 39 at Washington Heights’ Audubon Ballroom. Notable Black leaders such as actress Lupita Nyong’o, philosopher and academic Cornel West, and the Rev. Al Sharpton attended the glitzy opening night event.
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The spaceship is a futuristic take on Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line, which carried African Americans to Africa by ship at the beginning of the 20th century. However, the list of names that runs the length of the spacecraft suggests that we are in an updated, contemporary rendition of the opera, not the 1986 performance.
120 years of history are covered by the references. Other victims of racial hatred include Black individuals who have been lynched, such as Fred Rochelle (1901) and Emmett Till (1955), as well as Asian Americans and South Asian Americans, including Vincent Chin (1982), Balbir Singh Sodhi (2001), and Xiaojie Tan (2021), who was shot and killed while working at Young’s Asian Massage outside of Atlanta.
Director Robert O’Hara, who is nominated for a Tony Award for his work “Slave Play,” took the decision to be racially inclusive, citing Malcolm X’s life and contributions in an interview.
O’Hara stated, “Civil rights is not just about Black people, it’s about civil rights and human rights for everybody,” while adding “Malcolm X was a human rights activist in the end.”
Malcolm X was a political lightning rod throughout his lifetime and long after his passing, but on stage he is shown as a contemplative man who was changed by his time spent in jail and spiritually rejuvenated by a late-life trip to Mecca. The staging of “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which plays until December 2, is a landmark event in culture for certain opera enthusiasts.
Director Tazewell Thompson remarked, “The Met officially brands it worthy of the status of great American opera.” He added, “It has entered the repertoire.”
The New York City Opera presented the opera’s world premiere in 1986.
Longtime theater director and playwright Thompson, whose work frequently addresses the Black experience, said his memories of the first show are still clear.
He remembered clearly going to Lincoln Center from his Harlem apartment “in an inside and out graffiti-covered subway.”
“Seared in my memory,” Thompson remarked.
In the orchestra section’s “dead center,” he sat in tense expectancy.
“When the curtain rose it seemed I held my breath until the final curtain was brought in.”
He stated in an email that the opera more than met its aims by producing “an absorbing, enthralling spectacle,” one whose musical selections were diverse: “vibrant, searing arias; an abundant fund of sensuous melody; stretches of seductive, repetitive choral chants; Wagner inspired harmonies; dazzling jazz.”
More than 37 years after first seeing “X,” opera critic Fred Plotkin claimed that the present incarnation maintained the impact of the original performance.
Plotkin, author of “Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera,” declared, “The score is magnificent,” citing his “beloved” Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Charles Mingus as inspirations.
Plotkin stated, “What the music evokes, however, which is so wonderful about this music – it is original music. It’s not derivative.” He noted, “He’s quoting, he’s referring, but he’s taking that music and going elsewhere with it,” he said of Anthony Davis.
The opening of “X” at the Met, “one of the most important opera stages in the world,” according to musicologist and author Naomi André of “Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement,” is all the more noteworthy when considered in the context of the history of the genre.
André, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s David G. Frey Distinguished Professor in the music department, “Opera for so long has been this predominantly, almost exclusively, all white space that’s a very elitist space.”
One notable exception was Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was born into slavery in the early 1800s but went on to become a well-known opera artist across the world after taking vocal training.
Andre shared, “She ended up singing for Queen Victoria in the 1850s.” He added, “Yeah, craziness.”
The first African American to sing a principal part with the company was Marian Anderson, who made her debut at the Met in 1955. Other Black artists, including Leontyne Price, George Shirley, and Grace Bumbry, also gained notoriety in the years that followed.
However, according to André, Black women found it simpler to succeed than Black males. Racism was at play once more, she claimed.
“There was still a real fear of miscegenation on the opera stage,” she noted. “So it was easier to see Black women with white heroes than Black men with white heroines.”
André stated that additional issues with opera have endured throughout the past few decades, such as the usage of yellowface and blackface in productions of “Otello,” “Turandot,” “Madama Butterfly,” and “Aida,” among other works.
André, however, claimed that opera was compelled to reflect within by the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that broke out following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
“Finally opera companies began to say, ‘Whoa, we have been incredibly exclusive.’ I mean, anybody could have told you that, but they finally noticed it.”
The Met debuted Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” in 2021, marking the first time in its 138-year existence that the organization has performed an opera by a Black composer. The Met quickly agreed to acquire “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.”
The director, O’Hara, stated that when negotiations started, the Met was not a factor; instead, it was a collaborative effort with opera companies in Detroit, Seattle, and Omaha. However, he said the organization was very supportive after it signed on.
“Peter Gelb, the general manager, he always had my back,” O’Hara stated.
However, he claimed to have informed the business early on that it would have to “earn the right for us to be telling this story here,” and “acknowledge that you have not had us here before. That you have not told these stories.”
According to O’Hara, the creative team was under pressure from the material, which resulted in certain requests being made “the actors who have to basically kill a Black man every night in front of your audience.”
In order to do public service, he suggested that the Met host a marathon reading of “Autobiography of Malcolm X, as Told to Alex Haley.” This event was eventually scheduled for October 29 and was open to the public for free. Actor Courtney Vance, Malcolm X’s daughter Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, and Alex Haley’s grandson Bill Haley were among the readers.
Over eighteen hours passed throughout the reading. At times, the novel is “very uncomfortable,” according to O’Hara.
“You don’t have the right to put an X in front of your building and expect comfort,” O’Hara noted. “Malcolm X didn’t provide comfort. He provided the truth.”
In addition, O’Hara asserted that despite his assassination, Malcolm X is “not truly dead” since people still talk about him.
He said that sometimes people ask themselves: What would Malcolm X have thought of his revolutionary life being recounted in this really rarefied, overwhelmingly white arena, even though it had a flying spaceship?
“He would probably be rolling around in his grave going, ‘What the hell is going on? Why is my story being told there?’” noted O’Hara. “So hopefully we have done a service to him.”
