Life and Times of Malcolm X

[Dave2002]

I'm wondering whether to go and see the Met production of this opera by Anthony Davis tonight.

Is anyone else going to try - or maybe it's been shown already in some parts?

[Dave2002]

I went to this screening. For me it was more of historical interest rather than a musical one. I didn't enjoy the music particularly, though the biographical story was interesing.

Perhaps in the UK or Europe the kind of behaviours shown in the opera seem really strange, but they presumably resonated with some in the US in the mid 20th Century.

Daniel Catán's opera Florencia en El Amazonas which will be coming along soon, seems to be worth a visit when it arrives.

[Master Jacques]

Daniel Catán's opera Florencia en El Amazonas which will be coming along soon, seems to be worth a visit when it arrives.

Don't hold your breath! In my opinion, it's a bland, conventional piece which ticks the Spanish-speaking box, but few musical or dramatic ones. USA opera companies would be better reviving one of the many masterworks of Spanish music theatre emanating from Iberia itself, but the mainstream snobbery against repertoire with spoken dialogue persists. That would still leave them with a group of superb through-written works to choose from, such as Vives's Maruxa, but we must dream on.

[Dave2002]

This article from the Seattle Times gives a different perspective on the Malcolm X opera - definitely worth reading if you can see it.

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/classical-music/seattle-operas-x-spurs-discussion-of-operas-relationship-with-black-audiences/

[bluestateprommer]

I went to this screening. For me it was more of historical interest rather than a musical one. I didn't enjoy the music particularly, though the biographical story was interesing.

Perhaps in the UK or Europe the kind of behaviours shown in the opera seem really strange, but they presumably resonated with some in the US in the mid 20th Century.

Daniel Catán's opera Florencia en El Amazonas which will be coming along soon, seems to be worth a visit when it arrives.

Extremely belated reply, but I too went to see the Malcolm X opera at the time of the Met HD screening. Agree that the music isn't all that great or enjoyable. One example was the very end, where the presentation of Malcolm X meeting his fate was anti-climatic in the extreme, with no sense of horror at the event at all.

For Florencia en El Amazonas, I see Master J.'s point, that the music seems very much a fourth-pressing of Puccini, so to speak. It also seemed that Catan over-orchestrated the music more than once and didn't help the singers in that respect. Or perhaps it was YN-S' tendency to let the orchestra swamp the singers, as it seemed obvious that even with what the recording engineers can do for the HD-cast and radio relay in balancing the sound in the transmissions, the orchestra was far too loud too often. Yet even with that, compared with the Malcolm X opera, I got the sense that the Florencia cast was having a really good time singing the opera, compared to the Malcolm X cast.

It is admirable, in its way, that the Met is taking such a gamble in presenting a larger quotient of recent operas. Lots of risks, of course, as to whether the 'old guard' Met audience will take kindly to unfamiliar works, as well as the situation that younger, newer audiences to the opera don't realize that the Met Opera is a non-profit, and thus requires donations beyond ticket sales to survive. The Met is already taking big financial risks with drawing from its endowment to help with all the costs, which violates the first rule of a non-profit, namely that you are never supposed to draw from the endowment to cover costs, but rather use the interest and dividends from the investments of the endowment to pay for expenses.