“As the orchestra of the Detroit Opera tuned itself for a recent rehearsal, the outline of a vast spacecraft loomed over the pit,” writes Seth Colter Walls in Thursday’s (5/12) New York Times. “Anthony Davis’s opera ‘X: The Life and Times of Malcom X’ … opens on Saturday at the Detroit Opera House here.… [Director] Robert O’Hara … said that… the spaceship … is a symbolic critique of the opera world, which rarely takes stock of Black composers…. ‘We are actually saying this space cannot hold the opera; we have to crash and take over the space,’ O’Hara said…. After the new staging’s premiere in Detroit, it will travel Opera Omaha … and the Met [Opera in New York], as well as Seattle Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago…. A sizzling new production of [Davis’s 2019 opera ‘The Central Park Five’] … at Portland Opera this spring … is streaming on demand … through May 20. Elsewhere, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project will give its own semi-staged concert performance of ‘X’ on June 17…. With Detroit Opera’s revival of ‘X,’ we may be on the cusp of a broader reappraisal of Davis’s body of work…. ‘I just think that it’s Anthony’s time. It’s been past due for his time,’ O’Hara said.”
Composer Anthony Davis, now in the spotlight with new “Malcolm X” and “The Central Park Five” productions
Posted on: May 13, 2022