November 18, 2023

X: The Life and Times of Malcom X

In this performance of the opera by esteemed Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Davis, recorded as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions, baritone Will Liverman stars as Malcolm, headlining a tour-de-force cast that also features soprano Leah Hawkins, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis, tenor Victor Ryan Robertson, and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel. Stream on the Met Opera official website.

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.

Performance Date: Nov 18, 2023

Composer: Anthony Davis

Librettist: Thulani Davis

Run Time: 2 HRS 53 MIN

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Chorus and Ballet