APRIL 28 • 2022 | 9

duction of Anthony Davis’ opera
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm
X, directed by Robert O’Hara.
Since its premiere in 1986, Davis
has since gone on to win the
Pulitzer Prize for music, but his
first opera is such a wellspring
of inspiration and audacity that
it has come to be acknowledged
as an undeniable masterpiece of
American music. The brilliance
of the score and the relevance of
the subject matter have attracted
widespread interest among other
companies, and since announc-
ing our production, we’ve been
joined by the Metropolitan
Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago,
Opera Omaha and Seattle Opera
to co-produce this work.

PREPARING FOR X: THE
LIFE AND TIMES OF
MALCOLM X
Preparing for this opera
brought back my memory of
those photographs of Rabbi
Heschel and Rev. King —
although, of course, Malcolm
X and MLK Jr. have been too
easily reduced to an unten-
able opposition. Both men are
undergoing serious reevalu-
ations at a critical moment
in our cultural history: the
saintly image of Dr. King “the
dreamer” has been an exploit-
ative tool for maintaining a
racist status quo, as Ibram X.
Kendi argued so convincingly
in his 2021 essay “The Second
Assassination of Martin Luther
King Jr.”
And in his extraordinary
study The Sword and the Shield:
The Revolutionary Lives of
Malcolm X and Martin Luther
King Jr., Peniel Joseph braids
their two lives together to
argue that, rather than offering
opposing views, the men had
“convergent visions” that make
them two sides of the same
coin. Joseph cogently shifts the
opposition away from non-vio-
lence versus violence and toward
non-violence versus self-defense —
a crucial point in understanding

Malcolm X.
Malcolm X’s legacy has also
seen an extraordinary recon-
sideration in popular culture,
with common misperceptions
undergoing a corrective lens. An
invaluable contribution to our
understanding of this iconic life
is Les Payne and Tamara Payne’s
National Book Award-winning
biography The Dead are Arising,
which deftly shows how much
Malcolm’s legacy is shrouded in
misunderstandings or partial
views.
Back in 1986, however, Davis
and his cousin Thulani Davis,
the opera’s librettist, already
knew how to make the most
inspiring aspects of Malcolm
X’s life into a powerful piece of
theater. Focusing on Malcolm
X’s spiritual evolution, the opera
does not stop at the more sensa-
tional details of his story, taking
us instead to his ultimate awak-
ening, as Malik Shabazz, on a
pilgrimage to Mecca and back, at
the start of a new quest tragically
cut short.
One of the most startling
lines in Thulani Davis’ libretto
is in Malcolm’s Act I aria: “
As
long as I’ve been living / You’ve
had your foot on me, / Always
pressing.
”
The parallels to the murders
of George Floyd and Breonna
Taylor can feel crushing: has our
society really evolved so little
since this opera was first per-
formed?
The fact that Malcolm X
didn’t stop at that sentiment of
subjugation but instead embod-
ied a vision of empowerment
is part of what makes him an
essential figure in the fight
for a more just society. It is a
story that demands all of our
attention and for all of us to
participate.
Or, as Malcolm X frequently
said, “We have to change our
minds about each other.
”

Yuval Sharon is the Gary L.
Wasserman Artistic Director of Detroit
Opera.

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STORY
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