Anthony Davis’s
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
MET PREMIERE—LIVE in HD
NOVEMBER 18, 2023
10:00 AM PDT
Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera, which premiered in 1986, arrives at the Met at long last. Theater luminary and Tony-nominated director of Slave Play Robert O’Hara oversees a potent new staging that imagines Malcolm as an Everyman whose story transcends time and space. An exceptional cast of breakout artists and young Met stars enliven the operatic retelling of the civil rights leader’s life. Baritone Will Liverman, who triumphed in the Met premiere of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, sings Malcolm X, alongside soprano Leah Hawkins as his mother, Louise; mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis as his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson as 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.
Music by Anthony Davis
Libretto by Thulani Davis
Story by Christopher Davis
SUNG IN ENGLISH
RUNTIME: 3hrs 42m
Two Intermissions
Content Advisory: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X contains strong language.
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