Big, Bigger, Biggest!: The Met’s Magnificent Malcolm X Opera Relift (Hyun Jeong)

What do The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the 1992 film Malcolm X, and the opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X have in common? 

It’s loooooong. (In a good way!)

The 460-page autobiography, the three hour movie, and the three-and-half hour long opera all chronicle the life of Malcolm X, following his exponential development from a minister's child in Michigan to becoming one of the country’s most revered civil rights leaders. In the original autobiography, we hear directly from Malcolm X about his larger-than-life journey. Spike Lee’s film takes Malcolm X’s life from his words onto the big screen. With a $35 million budget, a cast including Nelson Mandela, and a location shooting at Mecca, the 1992 film is magnificent in every way imaginable, fully paying homage to Malcolm X’s epic-like life.

The recent staging of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X takes this grandeur to another level. This piece, debuted in 1985, has made an ambitious comeback at the Met Opera, with landscape-sized yet intricate digital artwork, a full orchestra with jazz additions, and an Afrofuturist costume display.

Modern operas inspired by or focusing on a single (historical) figure, like Phillip Glass’ Satyagraha (based on Mahatma Gandhi) or Akhnaten (on the eponymous Egyptian pharaoh), often take an intimate and mystic style. Maybe it’s the “minimalist cool” circulating in the air, or just the idea that if you go see an art performance in New York City, you’ve wasted your money unless you leave feeling more confused than before. In any way, we rarely seem to witness any Wagneresque grandiosity that captivates the classical opera audience.

X, however, is in your face. Direct. Undeniably big. And makes you go out of breath. The libretto resembling Malcolm X’s staccato speech declares the message “We are a Nation.”, and the Elijah Muhammad tenor proclaims “You are not empty, nor are you lost.” There is no “guessing the protagonist’s motives” or hypnotic suggestive hymns in this composition. The composer Anthony Davis’ note states that he attempts to portray the “heroic defiance of Malcolm X” through a voice that “[rises] and [swings] to assert its independence.” Malcolm X, in his autobiography, directly tells the readers to “watch,” and to observe how his “demagogue” leadership pulsates history. The opera directly responds to his call, explicitly conveying the racist reality that has been undeniably true in Malcolm X’s time, but also right now (which the producers make a conscious effort to include, with the names like Trayvon Martin and George Floyd written on the digital display in Act I). 

The stage set also takes its unique liberty to pursue a compelling grandiosity. One of the distinctive characters on-stage is the small troupe of flowy-satin-dressed black dancers. With Afrofuturistic costumes, the dancers perform a choreography abstracting injustices faced by African Americans ranging from police brutality to racial disproportionality in child welfare. The dance troupe, which constantly appears from the first to the last act, invoke a sense of universality and cyclic endlessness, hinting at the sense that Malcolm X’s life, though deeply personal, still stays relevant to contemporary America.

Malcolm X himself may not be too keen on his life being on display in this bastion of Eurocentric culture (that is the operahouse). However, X is undoubtedly a proof of concept for his call for black identity and Pan-Africanism. Much criticism has been posed on exclusion of non-white individuals in opera, as productions like Aida has casted a white soprano with skin-darkening makeup even up to last year. This opera’s fully-black crew, complete with glamorous Afrofuturist costumes, intricate choreography, and well-organized composition, shows what is possible (and consequently, what the white-dominated field of opera is denying). This grandiose opera explicitly refuses to be a minimal and personal portrayal of Malcolm X’s life; rather, it extends his journey into modern contexts and viscerally touches the audience.

*Image credits: Metropolitan Opera website, Malcolm X Official Release Poster, Penguin Random House