He is an inspiration for Black Lives Matter and the movement for social justice.

His vision is as prescient today as it was in 1986.

Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el Shabazz) is an even more relevant figure today. “It has been thirty-five years since the premiere of X, and I am eager to work with the extraordinary director Robert O'Hara on this new production that will feature a new generation of artists. “I look forward with great excitement to the production of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the Metropolitan Opera,” said composer Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis will be revising X for the new production, and Kazem Abdullah will conduct in all four cities. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is co-produced with Opera Omaha and Seattle Opera, where it will appear in the fall of 2022 and in the 2023-24 season, respectively. The opera will be performed in Detroit on May 14, 19, and 22, 2022. The production of X will also be featured as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions and broadcast on Sirius XM and over the Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.ĭescribed by The New York Times as “a riveting and uncompromising work,” X pairs Anthony Davis’s distinctly American score with a libretto by Thulani Davis, together casting an unflinching look at one of the most unfairly maligned men in American history in all of his complexity. O’Hara’s creative team features set designer Clint Ramos, costume designer Dede Ayite, lighting designer Alex Jainchill, and projection designer Yee Eun Nam. The upcoming Michigan Opera Theatre production of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X directed by Robert O’Hara and conducted by Kazem Abdullah will premiere at The Metropolitan Opera on November 3, 2023.

Malcolm X by Thulani Davis