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Davóne Tines/Whitney Morrison/Ronnita Miller/Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Odyssey Opera/Gil Rose(BMOP, two CDs)The libretto may creak a little but the Berg-influenced orchestral writing and jazzy solos are powerful in this performance of a historically significant workJohn Adams’s Nixon in China, first performed in 1987, is usually regarded as launching the concept of “CNN opera”: music-theatre works that dealt with contemporary events and recent history, often with protagonists who were still alive when they were first portrayed on stage. But arguably the genre had begun the previous year, with the staging at the New York City Opera of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, by the composer and pianist Anthony Davis, based on the life and death of the militant human rights campaigner Malcolm X.X attracted a great deal of attention and controversy at the time of the official premiere (after substantial revisions following performances in Philadelphia the previous year). Some critics dismissed it as “agitprop”, others praised its power and originality, but subsequently it has been almost entirely neglected. Davis has composed another seven operas, including the more widely performed Amistad (which, like X, has a libretto by the playwright Thulani Davis, the composer’s cousin). But the killing of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has rekindled interest in the score, and as well as the Boston performances that led to this recording – not the opera’s first, as the publicity claims, for an earlier one appeared in 1992 – Detroit Opera presented a new production last May, which will transfer to the New York Met next year. Continue reading...