By Felice León ·Updated November 17, 2023
There is an “X” that hangs in front of The Metropolitan Opera House’s façade. The “X” is a banner, created by artist Glenn Ligon, where a black bold ‘X’ (of Malcolm X) is affixed a “field of hand-stenciled dates that mark the arrival of enslaved Africans in America,” as he describes it. The art is essentially an advertisement for the opera, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, but still, there is great magnitude in the single letter.
Malcolm X took on “X” as a last name, after joining the Nation of Islam. It was a rejection of the slave master name “Little,” and represented the African name that he would never know. Today the letter is an insignia, of sorts. X it is donned on t-shirts and hats—but remains a representation of a man who was honored, feared and revered in his lifetime. Malcolm Little. Detroit Red. Malcolm X. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. He was “Our Shining Black Prince,” as Ozzie Davis eulogized him.
Opera is a white European art form that has largely excluded people of color. The significance of putting an opera about the revolutionary life of Malcolm X at The Metropolitan Opera House is not lost upon the opera’s director, Robert O’Hara. As the Met is one of the most famous opera houses in the world, he says that the institution must earn the right to tell this story.
“You can’t put an ‘X’ on the front of your building and have people come in and that you can just go and sit down and comfortably watch this opera,” O’Hara tells ESSENCE.
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, which first premiered at the New York City Opera in 1986, opened at the Metropolitan Opera House on November 3. It is only the third opera written by an African-American composer, in the Met’s 140 year history. The opera’s music is composed by Anthony Davis; the libretto is by Thulani Davis; and the story is by Christopher Davis. This group of cousins conceived of the opera decades ago to tell the story of X, a “tragic hero,” as a musical drama. Tony-nominated director Robert O’Hara (who also directed Slave Play) leads the opera’s production. He is the Met’s second Black director.
Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. The opening scene reveals a looming spaceship that through a beam of light “downloads” the entire opera into the performer who plays Malcolm, while scrolling the names of Black and Brown people who have fallen to police brutality and hate crimes, indicating the sobering reality that these acts of violence still exist. The opera employs the use of Afrofuturism and is an imagining of X into the future, courtesy of O’Hara’s fantastical vision.
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X’ runs at the Metropolitan Opera House until December 2.
The post Reimagining Malcolm X Through Opera appeared first on Essence.