Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X—MET PREMIERE

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

English StreamText captioning is available for the Met’s transmission of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X here. A transcript of the transmission will also be available to view after the live performance.

• Librettist: Thulani Davis

• Production: Robert O’Hara

• Set Designer: Clint Ramos

• Costume Designer: Dede Ayite

• Lighting Designer: Alex Jainchill

• Projection Designer: Yee Eun Nam

• Choreographer: Rickey Tripp

Kazem Abdullah (Conductor), Leah Hawkins (Louise/Betty), Raehann Bryce-Davis (Ella), Victor Ryan Robertson (Elijah/Street), Will Liverman (Malcolm), Michael Sumuel (Reginald)
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 take part in the operatic retelling of Malcom 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 is his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel is his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson is the 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.