X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

Anthony Davis
3 hours, 40 minutes with two intermissions (live)
Libretto by Thulani Davis, story by Christopher Davis

Content Advisory: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X contains strong language.

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, is Malcolm, 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.

_{The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding sponsor The Neubauer Family Foundation. Digital support is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Met: Live in HD is supported by Rolex.}