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Existing user? Just click login. Anyone familiar with Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prizer-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY must be a bit bewildered at how a 700-page novel could be turned into a 3-hour opera. Or, for that matter, how a superhero named “The Escapist” could be sharing a stage this week with Puccini’s TURANDOT and Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI.
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To the rescue! It’s composer Mason Bates, librettist Gene Sheer, director Bart Sher and the stage design wizards of 59 Studio. Add the Met Orchestra under Yannick Nezet-Seguin propelling the gorgeous, exciting, eclectic score around such themes as art, fascism, Jewish and sexual identities, and storytelling. This tale of two Jewish cousins who invent a superhero to garner support in the US against fascism, save family in German-occupied Prague, and fulfill their own dreams is nothing if not fascinating. Composer Bates has garnered quite a bit of attention because of his use of electronica amid more traditional classical sounds. Well, relax. There were definitely some no-shows among longtime subscribers put off by the combination of electronic music, a cartoon superhero and Nazis, but they needn’t have worried. There was beautiful music of many kinds—including a few nods to the characters’ Judaism—as Bates created three sound worlds, from more traditionally romantic to Gershwin-ish street clatter to electronic--to cover the broad and varied aspects of the story. And the guy certainly knows how to write for voices! This was particularly evident in the work of mezzo Sun-Ly Pierce, as Rosa Saks, who had more than a little opportunity to show why she’s someone to look out for. As compelling to watch as to hear, she was a strong advocate for the vocal writing abilities of Bates and she worked well off the other two principals, baritone Andrzej Filonczyk (as Joe Kavalier, her love interest, in his Met debut) and tenor Miles Mykkanen (as Sam Clay), whose roles were more clearly drawn. Both sang with authority and poise. Librettist Sheer showed with last season’s MOBY-DICK that he knows how to wrestle a mammoth piece of writing down to size. By narrowing the scope of KAVALIER, he gave it focus and clarity. I think he might have whittled away too much at times, forcing a bit too much exposition to explain what wasn’t there, but the piece might have had to give up too much musically, if he’d done so. A case of ‘the lady or the tiger?” I guess. (Paul Cremo was the dramaturg—a term that is changeable from production to production—but I assume made him part of the mix of the libretto.) Shepherding the opera around, with its big cast and amazing, ever-shifting scenic design from 59 Studio, was Bart Sher, doing some of his best work for the Met. It was no small achievement, with the constant changes in the who-why-and-where of the marvelous production. Jennifer Moeller’s costumes moved with the tide, here wild, there grim, in her Met debut. A special callout should go to Mandy Moore's sensational choreography in Act II (in her Met debut) at the going away party for soldiers going off to war that turns out to be an all-gay affair. Raided by the FBI, most are taken off to jail but the consequences are unclear, since Among the other notables in the cast were soprano Lauren Snouffer, who sang with urgency as Kavalier’s sister, Sarah; bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi as Clay’s boss, who bankrolls the comic book incarnation of “The Escapist”; and bass-baritone Craig Colclough as the heinous Nazi commander. The ever-reliable Eve Gigliotti was Clay’s mother, Esther, and Bonnie Wright flew through the air with fine form as the comics' Luna Moth. Kudos to Jerimy Rivera as the embodiment of the cartoon “Escapist” and Efrain Solis, in his debut, as Salvatore Dali, saved by Kavalier. The Met chorus was in sturdy form under Tilman Michael. Is THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY the elusive piece that can turn into a longer term hit for the Met? Only time will tell—and maybe enough hits of another kind: on Instagram. The opera will be in repertoire through October 11. For more information and tickets, see the Met’s website. Caption: (from left) Andrzej Filończyk, Miles Mykkanen, Edward Nelson and Sun-Ly Pierce. (Floating figure) Lauren Snouffer. Photo credit: Evan Zimmerman/Met Opera Reader Reviews To post a comment, you must register and login.
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