Word: malcolms
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MUSIC Andrew Davis' opera about Malcolm X is a study of rage...
ALBUM: X, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MALCOLM...
Modern artists aren't so patient. The past decade or so has witnessed operas on such subjects as Mahatma Gandhi (Philip Glass's Satyagraha) and Richard Nixon (John Adams' Nixon in China). The latest example is Malcolm Little, known best as the black-power firebrand Malcolm X, who was gunned down in New York City 27 years ago. Spike Lee's already controversial film Malcolm X is due to open next month, but before there was Lee there was composer Anthony Davis and his powerful, chilling opera X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, first produced in Philadelphia...
...plot follows the trajectory of Malcolm's short life, from his tragic childhood in Lansing, Michigan, through his career as an urban hustler in Boston, his conversion to the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad and his assassination at 39. The less savory aspects of his life are glossed over in favor of his iconographic significance as the avenging angel of black America. "My truth is a hammer," sings the jailed Malcolm in the extraordinary aria that ends the first act. "It will beat you down when you least expect . . . You want the truth, but you don't want...
Davis frames the text's tough words with equally uncompromising music. Incessant rhythmic ostinatos reflect Malcolm's deepening monomania; the voice line shears off unexpectedly in outbursts of rage and pain, while the jazz- tinged orchestration firmly locates the action in time and place...