Opera thrives on simplicity. It’s an art form where time bends, actions and emotions are distilled, and drama elevates to a dreamlike state.
This inherent quality means operatic plots are often direct, allowing the music to weave in intricate layers and profound meaning. Even Wagner’s monumental ‘Ring’ cycle, spanning over 15 hours, can be condensed to a brief synopsis.
However, Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, is anything but simple. Its vast 600-plus pages are brimming with World War II narratives and profound themes of American identity, Jewish heritage, love, mortality, and the transformative power of pop culture—truly the essence of aspiring literary greatness.
But does such a complex narrative translate effectively to the operatic stage? Composer Mason Bates certainly believed it could.
His collaborative adaptation with librettist Gene Scheer kicked off the Metropolitan Opera’s season on Sunday. The evening began with opening remarks from Met General Manager Peter Gelb and New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who spoke out in defense of free speech and artistic expression, citing them as being under threat. (Their statements elicited mixed reactions of boos and applause, with one audience member notably shouting for Schumer to ‘do something about it.’) Gelb positioned ‘Kavalier & Clay’ as a powerful assertion of art’s role against oppression.
This might be an expectation the opera struggles to bear. Bates’s adaptation, much like a skipping stone, merely skims the surface of Chabon’s intricate novel, failing to delve deeply. The result is an operatic experience that feels simultaneously overloaded with plot and lacking in true emotional depth.
Image: Miles Mykkanen, left, and Andrzej Filonczyk portray Clay and Kavalier diligently crafting their iconic comic, ‘The Escapist.’
Scheer is no stranger to adapting extensive literary works; his previous Met productions include Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and Herman Melville’s complex Moby-Dick. While he demonstrates skill in constructing a narrative, the adaptations often lose the profound meaning or underlying purpose of the original stories.
For ‘Kavalier & Clay,’ Scheer broadly outlines the journeys of its protagonists: Joe Kavalier’s desperate escape from Nazi-occupied Prague and the horrors of the Holocaust; his collaboration with cousin Sam Clay to create the superhero ‘the Escapist’; and their intertwined romantic lives – Joe’s with the driven artist Rosa Saks, complicated by his past trauma, and Sam’s with actor Tracy Bacon, shadowed by societal homophobia.
Compressing such an expansive story into two and a half hours, Scheer frequently falls back on clichés. Sam’s yearning, for instance, is reduced to the rather uninspired line, ‘I have a secret / I don’t want what other guys want.’ A flat, villainous character named Gerhard, meant to embody Nazism, delivers an almost Iago-esque ‘Credo’ aria, outlining his ideology: he dismisses art’s impact, proclaiming only ‘bullets are all that matter.’ A historical figure like Joseph Goebbels would likely have disagreed with such a simplistic view.
Much like a novelist, Scheer moves swiftly between settings, from Prague to New York and the Western Front, at times even presenting them concurrently. Broadway veteran director Bartlett Sher skillfully manages this complexity, delivering a polished, visually coherent production that merges realistic staging with dynamic, stylized animations projected by 59 Studios onto sliding panels.
While there are occasional design flaws – the Brooklyn setting for the Clay family feels more like a Manhattan tenement, and European scenes evoke the Holocaust with overly facile symbols, including striped prisoner uniforms – the projections truly shine. They create captivating, cinematic sequences, illustrating how a simple pencil sketch can blossom into an entirely new realm. Sher orchestrates scene changes, even from a lightning-struck Empire State Building to a bustling art gallery, with the effortless grace of turning a comic book page.
Among the singers Sher is working with here are Met veterans and promising newcomers, notably baritone Andrzej Filonczyk in his debut as Joe. Filonczyk possesses an earnest, youthful vocal quality, but his character often remains an enigma. While his dialogue conveys emotion, the uninspired vocal composition leaves the audience merely taking his feelings at face value.
Image: Edward Nelson, portraying Tracy, shares a cinematic moment with Mykkanen’s Sam.
In contrast, tenor Miles Mykkanen’s portrayal of Sam is much more vibrant. He delivers a dynamic performance, brimming with bright excitement and captivating expressiveness. Mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce, as Rosa, is equally commanding, bringing a ‘Mrs. Maisel’-like charm and presence. Some of the opera’s most poignant scenes emerge when Sam and Rosa connect, both having been left behind by the men they love, as they forge new, contemporary lives together.
The extensive cast also includes soprano Lauren Snouffer as Joe’s younger sister, Sarah (a gender swap from the book), who, like Joe, is afforded minimal opportunities to make a strong impact. Bass-baritone Craig Colclough’s Gerhard, the Nazi antagonist, suffers from similar one-dimensionality. However, baritone Edward Nelson shines as Tracy, exuding charming warmth and remarkable stage comfort in a role demanding an actor’s confidence and dancing prowess—a feat few opera singers manage without awkwardness.
Bates truly seems to revel in the musical moments featuring Sam and Tracy, particularly in their dance sequences, which are imbued with a lively big-band feel. One scene even features a chattering chorus humorously playing on the suggestive first name of a character. Their initial kiss, set dramatically atop the Empire State Building, feels grand and exquisitely cinematic.
Much of the opera benefits from the enthusiastic conducting of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director. Bates, known for blending symphonic and electronic elements, projects a ‘cool’ image that masks a rather innocuous style. His score consistently leans towards the obvious, functioning more as a guiding soundtrack for the audience’s emotions rather than enriching the drama with subtle complexities.
The 1939 Prague opening scene immediately establishes a mood with an ominous low note and martial percussion. A bustling office setting is punctuated by the sounds of typewriters, and the name ‘Superman’ is sung with an extended, soaring melody. Salvador Dalí’s brief appearance at the art gallery perfectly captures the expected playful, comedic essence. The opera ultimately concludes on a harmonious chord, reminiscent of the grand finales from classic Hollywood films.
At its peak intensity, yet paradoxically its most uninspired, Bates’s score portrays the Escapist with soaring strings and bombastic, blockbuster heroism, drawing heavily from the iconic soundtracks of films like Tim Burton’s Batman and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. It feels appropriate that this particular music is purely symphonic, serving as a backdrop to video sequences rather than accompanying the singers.
While Bates’s music is undeniably skillful and enjoyable in moments, it ultimately proves forgettable—a common characteristic of many contemporary operas seen at the Met since its post-pandemic return. Notable exceptions include Brett Dean’s Hamlet and Kaija Saariaho’s profoundly moving masterpiece Innocence, scheduled for its Met premiere later this season.
However, the prevailing house style tends towards a pursuit of topical relevance, addressing themes such as race and sexuality in Fire Shut Up in My Bones, drone warfare in Grounded, and the anti-fascist potency of art in Kavalier & Clay. While this ambition is commendable, the execution often results in musically uninspired scores that demand little from the audience, rendering them little more than background entertainment outside the operatic context.
This falls short of what opera truly represents. At its finest, opera, with its elevated depiction of life and narrative, should command your full attention and possess the power to completely envelop and overwhelm you. But only at its best.
***The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay*** is scheduled to run through October 11 at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan.