by Anthony Davis
Opera Screening
An NCPA-The Metropolitan Opera (New York) Presentation
Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera, which premiered in 1986, now arrives at the Met. Theatre 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 artistes 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, is Malcolm, 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.
Conductor: Kazem Abdullah
Cast: Leah Hawkins, Raehann Bryce-Davis, Victor Ryan Robertson, Will Liverman & Michael Sumuel
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