The words from Glen Ligon’s artwork still haunt me all these years later.
Not at all like the typical polite prints on the suburban walls I grew up, with Adam reaching out to God’s finger or a poorly inked Monet. Glen Ligon’s artwork stopped me in my tracks every time I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I really didn’t know what it was about or why it affected me so, but every visit I would stop and read the words.
“I’m Turning Into a Specter before Your Very Eyes and I’m Going to Haunt You.”
They weren’t the only words to affect me back then. I always had a book in my hand in those days and one that especially meant a lot to me was Alex Haley’s “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” Like the painting I didn’t quite understand the books full significance and whether that was a lack of empathy or of education I’m not really sure, but it really stirred something within me.
It was the pattern of Malcolm’s life to self-reflect, pivot, and move toward personal betterment I found so inspiring. Just beginning Community College with little compass, his words genuinely made me want to change direction, get some bearing, and move toward a better version of myself.
I’d like to think it was also a first step in learning to see the world through perspectives other than my own and to see a more complete history of the country I lived. (But I may be giving that younger self a little more credit than he deserves).
Fast forward to today and the facade of Lincoln Center is covered in an enormous banner designed by the artist I remember from Philadelphia, Glen Ligon. I stand and take pictures. It is a serendipitous moment for me because the opera being promoted is X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X. For me, a nice remembrance to another time, but also I think important for the future of The Metropolitan Opera; for until recently the opera world has been slow to progress.
The Metropolitan Opera for instance just welcomed its first black composer two years ago. A shocking neglect and oversight (I mean what was it 1935 that baseball welcomed Jackie Robinson, almost a century ago). I’m glad to see looking at this 23/24 season that the choice wasn’t just a placating gesture of the moment of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement but a permanent new direction. The Met has found its compass.
These choices from big organizations are meaningful. Already a direct result is to see a much younger and more representative audience in the theater today and also more visibility on the Met Stage and staffing.
Opera can’t hold it’s breath in 1883 and still remain a living breathing art form. The cannon must be opened up to include newer operas that might better connect with newer audiences more representative of our countries diversity.
Behind the banner, inside, I feel it!
Divine is the bristling expectation, chatter, and picture taking happening before the conductor takes the podium.
The curtain rises:
Rhythm and costume open up a 1930’s where young Malcolm with the high voice of Bryce Christian has to become a man quicker than a child should have to. He is physically lifted and carried by the chorus helping him navigate the traumas of his time. They put him down. The music goes quiet. He comes forward to place a single chair out for the adult Malcolm to sit. It is this poignant metaphor which brings back all my recollections of the museum and community college and a kid wanting to be better than he was…
The voice is even stronger for me now than it was then.
“I’m Turning Into a Specter before Your Very Eyes and I’m Going to Haunt You.”
The opera of course takes on a much wider scope beyond my personal recollections. The production digs deep into the culture of prejudice in The United States: Jim Crow, institutional racism, the civil rights movement, and Black Lives Matter. The weight of these themes are too much for me to truly appreciate or comprehend. The production helps me get there. The weight is eased onto the framework of afro-futurism which turns out I think to be an exciting production choice affording the opera a perspective of hope.
It makes me think of this Winslow Homer painting. A lone man on a small boat surrounded by waves, sharks, and storms with a broken mast and a cargo of sugar cane. The painting sat complete like this for many years. Then one day the artist got up and added hope, a ship of rescue on the left horizon.
A social good of Art is its ability to share stories that aren’t always included in the popular mainstream or history books. Art is a platform where the othered can take control of their own narrative thru expression and documentation.
Afro-Futurism is such a vehicle in vogue that artists are using to educate and celebrate on their own terms. It is defined as, “a movement in literature, music, and art, that features futuristic or science fiction themes while incorporating elements of Black history and culture.” For example, a story of displacement from 1857 when NYC used eminent domain to displace a living community was lost to most people until The Metropolitan Museum of Art shares the story, framing it, like the opera, through the lens of Afro-futurism. The exhibit is titled “Before Yesterday We Could Fly.” A more pop-significant example would be the “Black Panther” movie.
It’s why travelers phenomenally dressed from the future are on stage during most of the show. Their styles reminding me of the futuristic scenes from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” They stand as silent judges, but also foreshadowers of the future Barack Obama promised with his oft quoted line from Martin Luther King, Jr. that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
As a country we must equitably do more; better and faster.
Malcolm takes center stage fighting for change with his charisma and words. Above him and the other actors are projected onto a shape somewhere between a flying saucer and the the Statue of Liberty. Crown are futuristic tropes mixed with words and historical photos
This wasn’t an easy opera. At times uplifting. At times thought provoking. At times, confrontational. At the end of the first act when Malcolm addresses the audience on inequity and prejudice the ever changing projections above the stage include the names of black citizens murdered by police from both Malcom’s time and the present. Before the police beating of Rodney King was filmed and the current plethora of cell-phone images, this civil failing was mostly hidden from a larger white population.
In an example how art can express and document, the artist Jean-Michele Basquiat painted a picture of his response to the murder of Michael Stewart in 1984. The painting was cut out of the wall by Keith Haring for posterity and is now the central painting in a very thoughtful exhibit at the Guggenheim.
Malcolm is still on stage passionately proselytizing when the theater lights gradually come on until the entire auditorium is full bright. A visual accusation literally shining a light on whatever guilt might lie in the hearts of the audience members. Privilege? Apathy? Ignorance? Nepotism? I guess it depends on each individual. The device effectively shatters the fourth wall to include the audience into the narrative. They did this in a recent production of Verdi’s Falstaff too which accused the audience for taking themselves too seriously.
The provocation brings to light that we’re all in this together and Malcolm’s story is far from ancient history. It’s difficult to believe that it wasn’t until 1965 that The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to prohibit racial discrimination in voting. More difficult to believe that it would be necessary.
Malcolm X was assassinated that same year.
The content of this opera overpowered the music for me; but that’s not to say the music wasn’t magnificent. To the contrary, I was on the edge of my seat for much of the performance pulled along by the music for every point of the narrative. With dance and visuals the experience was truly operatic in the best sense and I fall short of saying I loved it only because it all feels so recent and I think of my current students and my own past… It was a big opera that felt personal.
The individual singing and the chorus were strong throughout. In the beginning I thought maybe Liverman was on the weak side, however he was tactically giving his voice room to grow into the later and more mature Malcom as the narrative develops.
The orchestra is supremely engaging throughout the night as they navigate a score that shifts back and forth between conventional classical modes and head bopping jazz.
In a few people like Malcolm the personal and societal overlap like both a beacon and lightning rod. Incredible enough to help change pubic policy while at the same time inspiring some dumb kid in community college decades and experience away… In this one thoughtful and charismatic person the opera shows us the past, present, and hopefully a future promised, a world of equal opportunity.
Let’s keep passing on these relevant stories until we all can become our better selves and get there.
Notes on The Production:
Composer…………………………………..…….………. Anthony Davis’s
Conductor…………………………….………….………. Dazed Abdullah
Malcolm…………………………………………….…….. Will Liverman
Young Malcolm…………………………………………. Bryce Christian Thompson
Ella/Queen Mother……………………………………. Raehann Bryce-Davis
Garvey Preacher………………………………………. Edwin Jhamaal Davis
Street……………………………………………………….. Victor Ryan Robertson
Elijah……………………………………………………….. Victor Ryan Robertson
Betty/Louis………………………………..……………… Leah Hawkins
Neighbor………………………………………………….. Jasmine Muhammad
Policeman………………………………………………… Gregory Warren
Policeman………………………………………………… Marco Jordao
Policeman………………………………………………… Ross Benoliel
Muezzin……………………………………………………. Tshombe Selby
Postman……………………………………………………. Elliott Paige
Metropolitan Opera
11/7
Notes:
The artist Jean-Michele Basquiat was born five years before the Voting Rights Act passes however racial biases reverberated into his lifetime and beyond. A recent exhibit of his at the Guggenheim expresses this perpetuating civil failing and i thought one of the tightest exhibits to come around in the last few years.
The exhibit reinforce many of the themes in todays opera.
The exhibit begins with a painting referencing the death of influential jazz musician Charlie Parker, who died a citizen in a country where he couldn’t vote or eat where he played his music. The opera’s orchestration is complex and prominently features the horns, percussions, and rhythms of jazz.
It centers around a singular painting,
Deeper into the exhibit is the central painting of the exhibit that Basquiat created in response to the murder of Michael Stewart while in police custody. Part of this chain in history most recently captured on cell phones around the country. He painted it on the wall of fellow artist Keith Haring.
The New York Times wrote “Exactly what happened when the police apprehended Mr. Stewart, a Pratt Institute student, at the First Avenue subway station in the early hours of Sept. 15, 1983, remains unsettled, many years after a grand jury’s decision not to indict several officers, and a subsequent settlement awarded to the Stewart family. What is known is that the police brought him, hogtied and badly injured, to Bellevue Hospital, where he died after two weeks in a coma.”
Keith Haring thought it significant enough to remove for posterity.
The exhibit like the opera is boldly focused, but doesn’t shy away from the complexities and contradictions of race relations in the United States. The painting “Irony of a black policemen” particularly made me pause and think about the power structures that surround us and their inherent inequities.
Malcolm’s discovery of Islam is the real game-changer in his life, something larger than himself to help connect him to the larger world in constructive ways. Many of my family follow this same path. I recall original paintings of growing gardens and the names of prophets branching to the next.
The black and white text that descends into a dark well of ink strikes raw like a bone.
If you’d like to dip your toes into this genre of Afro-futurism here are two books I found both compelling and entertaining:
