‘Malcolm X,’ the Met Opera revival, returns to New York. Oh, and there’s a spaceship.

There’s an unexpected, futuristic twist in the revival of the Anthony Davis opera “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” the original of which was first staged nearly four decades ago: A spaceship hovers over the stage throughout the entire production, and names familiar and perhaps unfamiliar scroll along the contours of the vessel.

The Met Opera work, which opened last week at Lincoln Center, traces the life of the Black civil rights leader, from his childhood in Michigan to his final moments, when he was gunned down at age 39 in Audubon Ballroom, Washington Heights. Opening night was a glamorous affair, drawing notable Black figures including actress Lupita Nyong’o, scholar and philosopher Cornel West and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The spaceship serves as a futuristic twist on Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line, which in the early 20th century transported African Americans by ship to Africa. But the list of names running along the side of the spaceship indicates that we’re in a new, modernized version of the opera, one that has been updated from the 1986 production.

The references span 120 years of history. In addition to Black lynching victims like Fred Rochelle (1901) and Emmett Till (1955) and victims of police shootings such as 12-year-old Tamir Rice (2014), it includes Asian Americans and South Asian Americans who have been on the receiving end of racial hatred: Vincent Chin (1982), Balbir Singh Sodhi (2001) and Xiaojie Tan, who in 2021 was gunned down while working at Young’s Asian Massage outside of Atlanta.

The choice to be racially inclusive was made by director Robert O’Hara, the Tony-nominated director of “Slave Play,” who said in an interview that it spoke to the life’s work of Malcolm X.

“Civil rights is not just about Black people, it's about civil rights and human rights for everybody,” said O’Hara. “Malcolm X was a human rights activist in the end.”

In life and well after his death, Malcolm X was a political lightning rod, but on stage he is presented as a meditative figure, one who was shaped by his years in prison and spiritually renewed by a late-in-life pilgrimage to Mecca. For some opera lovers the production of “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which runs through Dec. 2, represents a cultural milestone.

“The Met officially brands it worthy of the status of great American opera,” said playwright and director Tazewell Thompson. “It has entered the repertoire.”

‘Seared in my memory’

The opera made its world premiere in 1986, at New York City Opera.

Thompson, a longtime playwright and theater director whose work often deals with the Black experience, said his recollection of the original production remains vivid.

He distinctly recalled traveling from his apartment in Harlem “in an inside and out graffiti-covered subway” to Lincoln Center.

“Seared in my memory,” said Thompson.

He sat waiting with nervous anticipation in the “dead center” of the orchestra section.

“When the curtain rose it seemed I held my breath until the final curtain was brought in.”

The opera more than lived up to its expectations, he said in an email, by creating “an absorbing, enthralling spectacle,” one that was wide-ranging in its musical offerings: “vibrant, searing arias; an abundant fund of sensuous melody; stretches of seductive, repetitive choral chants; Wagner inspired harmonies; dazzling jazz.”

Opera critic Fred Plotkin said the power of the original production held through in the current avatar, which he experienced Tuesday night, more than 37 years after first encountering “X.”

“The score is magnificent,” said Plotkin, author of “Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera,” who said he heard influences of Charles Mingus, Fats Waller and his “beloved” Duke Ellington.

“What the music evokes, however, which is so wonderful about this music – it is original music. It's not derivative,” said Plotkin. “He's quoting, he's referring, but he's taking that music and going elsewhere with it,” he said of Anthony Davis.

Black performers in a white space

Naomi André, a musicologist and author of “Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement,” said the fact that “X” opened at the Met, “one of the most important opera stages in the world,” is that much more significant when viewed against the history of the form.

“Opera for so long has been this predominantly, almost exclusively, all white space that's a very elitist space,” said André, who is the David G. Frey Distinguished Professor in the music department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Notable exceptions were Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was born into slavery in the early 1800s but eventually received voice lessons and became an internationally renowned opera performer.

“She ended up singing for Queen Victoria in the 1850s,” said André. “Yeah, craziness.”

André said for many aficionados the “breaking of the color barrier” in opera took place in 1955 when Marian Anderson made her debut at the Met, becoming the first African American to sing a leading role with the company. In subsequent years, other Black performers also made a name for themselves: Leontyne Price, George Shirley, Grace Bumbry.

By and large, however, Black women had an easier time breaking through than Black men, said André. Once again, she argued, racism was at work.

“There was still a real fear of miscegenation on the opera stage,” she said. “So it was easier to see Black women with white heroes than Black men with white heroines.”

In recent decades, other problems have persisted in opera, said André, including the use of blackface and yellowface in “Otello,” “Turandot,” “Madama Butterfly” and “Aida,” among others.

But André said the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 forced opera to look inward.

“Finally opera companies began to say, ‘Whoa, we have been incredibly exclusive.’ I mean, anybody could have told you that, but they finally noticed it.”

In 2021, the Met presented “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” by Terence Blanchard, the first time the company had staged an opera by a Black composer in its 138-year history. Not long after, the Met signed on to “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.”

Very much supported by the Met

O’Hara, the director, said the Met wasn’t in the picture when talks began – it was initially a joint venture between opera companies in Detroit, Seattle and Omaha. But once it signed on, he said the institution was fully supportive.

“Peter Gelb, the general manager, he always had my back,” said O’Hara.

Still, he said, he told the company early on that it would have to “earn the right for us to be telling this story here,” and “acknowledge that you have not had us here before. That you have not told these stories.”

O’Hara said these demands emerged in part from the strain the material placed on the creative team, including “the actors who have to basically kill a Black man every night in front of your audience.”

As a public service, he proposed that the Met hold a marathon reading of the entire “Autobiography of Malcolm X, as Told to Alex Haley,” which ultimately took place on Oct. 29 and was free to the public. Readers included actor Courtney Vance, Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz (daughter of Malcolm X) and Bill Haley, the grandson of Alex Haley.

The reading took place over 18 hours. The book, said O’Hara, is “very uncomfortable” at times.

“You don't have the right to put an X in front of your building and expect comfort,” said O’Hara. “Malcolm X didn't provide comfort. He provided the truth.”

And although Malcolm X was assassinated, O’Hara said he’s “not really dead,” because we continue to talk about him.

Occasionally, he said, people raise the question: What would Malcolm X have thought of the fact that his revolutionary life was now being told in this extremely white, extremely rarefied arena – albeit one with a floating spaceship?

“He would probably be rolling around in his grave going, ‘What the hell is going on? Why is my story being told there?’” said O’Hara. “So hopefully we have done a service to him.”