Review: A ‘Kavalier & Clay’ Opera Doesn’t Meet Its Moment

The Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a superficial adaptation of Michael Chabon’s novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”

By Joshua Barone

Sept. 22, 2025, 12:28 p.m. ET

Opera, at its heart, thrives on simplicity. It’s a medium where time bends, allowing emotions and actions to be artfully compressed or expanded, transforming drama into something akin to a vivid dream.

Because of this inherent nature, operatic plots typically remain straightforward, providing ample space for the music to introduce complexity and profound transcendence. Even Wagner’s monumental four-part “Ring” cycle, spanning over 15 hours, can be summarized in mere minutes.

However, Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” is not simple. Its sprawling 600-plus pages are packed with World War II-era adventure and grand themes encompassing Americanness, Jewish identity, love, loss, and, crucially, the transformative power of pop culture. This is the very essence of fiction striving for literary excellence.

So, does such a rich and intricate narrative lend itself to an opera? Composer Mason Bates certainly believes so.

His adaptation, featuring a libretto by Gene Scheer, inaugurated the Metropolitan Opera’s season on Sunday. The evening began with opening remarks from Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who spoke passionately in defense of free speech and artistic expression, which they claimed were under threat. (Their comments were met with a mixed reception of boos and applause, with one audience member notably shouting at Schumer to “do something about it.”) Gelb framed “Kavalier & Clay” as a powerful testament to art’s ability to resist oppression.

However, this might be a heavier burden than the opera can truly bear. Much like a skipping stone, Bates’s adaptation glides over the surface of Chabon’s novel without ever truly immersing itself in its depths. The result is a treatment that is both too ambitious for the operatic form and yet not profound enough: an overload of plot, but a deficit of genuine transcendence.

Scheer has previously tackled weighty literary works, having adapted Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” and Herman Melville’s expansive “Moby-Dick,” both of which have graced the Met stage. While he possesses a knack for storytelling, his adaptations often lose the deeper meaning or underlying purpose of the original narrative.

In the case of “Kavalier & Clay,” Scheer broadly outlines the journeys of its central figures: Joe Kavalier’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague and the horrors of the Holocaust; his collaboration with cousin Sam Clay to create the comic book hero, the Escapist; and their respective romantic entanglements – Joe’s with the resourceful artist Rosa Saks, complicated by his lingering trauma, and Sam’s with actor Tracy Bacon, hindered by societal shame surrounding his homosexuality.

All of this unfolds within two and a half hours, prompting Scheer to frequently resort to clichés. Sam’s inner turmoil is conveyed with the uninspired line, “I have a secret / I don’t want what other guys want.” A one-dimensional villain named Gerhard embodies the entirety of Nazism, delivering an Iago-esque “Credo” aria where he expounds his philosophy, dismissing art’s impact and declaring that “bullets are all that matter.” One might argue that Joseph Goebbels himself would disagree with such a simplistic view.

Much like a novelist, Scheer swiftly moves between settings in Prague, New York, and the Western Front, sometimes even presenting them simultaneously. Bartlett Sher, a veteran Broadway director renowned for his smooth and elegant productions, skillfully orchestrates everything into a cohesive visual experience. His staging seamlessly blends realism with dynamic sliding panels featuring stylized animations from 59 Studios.

Despite some minor scenic missteps—the Clay family’s Brooklyn building resembling a Lower East Side tenement, and some European scenes using overly simplistic, almost glib, concentration camp imagery, including striped prisoner uniforms—the projections truly shine. They create thrilling, cinematic moments, illustrating how a simple pencil sketch can magically transform into an entirely new world. Sher’s transitions are remarkably fluid, making shifts, even from the lightning-struck top of the Empire State Building to a bustling art gallery party, feel as effortless as flipping a comic book page.

Among the performers Sher directs are established Met artists and a number of promising newcomers, notably baritone Andrzej Filonczyk as Joe. While he possesses a sincere, youthful voice, much of the opera finds him portraying a rather indistinct character. His dialogue conveys his emotions, but the vocal composition offers little variation, leaving the audience to simply trust his words.

More engaging is tenor Miles Mykkanen’s portrayal of Sam, a dynamic role he tackles with vibrant enthusiasm and captivating expressiveness. Equally compelling is mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce as Rosa, who exudes the charm and stage presence reminiscent of Mrs. Maisel. Some of the opera’s most touching scenes feature Sam and Rosa together, finding new, modern lives for themselves after being left behind by the men they love.

The large cast also includes soprano Lauren Snouffer as Joe’s younger sister, Sarah (a gender change from the novel), who, like Joe, is given little opportunity for character development. The same could be said for bass-baritone Craig Colclough’s Gerhard, the Nazi antagonist. Baritone Edward Nelson, as Tracy, brings a delightful warmth and natural ease to a role that demands an actor’s confidence and readiness to dance—a feat few opera singers achieve without appearing awkward.

Bates truly seems to revel in the musical numbers involving Sam and Tracy. Their dance scene, for instance, features a lively big-band sound, and one moment includes a chattering chorus playfully hinting at a character named Dick Johnson. Their first kiss, shared atop the Empire State Building, is portrayed with cinematic grandeur.

Indeed, much of the opera feels grand, conducted with evident enthusiasm by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director. Bates has built his reputation on blending symphonic and electronic music, creating an aura of contemporary coolness that ultimately masks a rather benign approach. His score is almost consistently transparent, guiding the listener’s thoughts and emotions much like a film soundtrack, rather than enriching them with layers of dramatic subtlety.

The opening scene, set in 1939 Prague, begins with an ominous low note and percussive martial rhythms. A bustling office is underscored by the sounds of typewriters, while the name Superman is sung with an expansive, soaring melody. Salvador Dalí makes a brief appearance in the art gallery, delivered with precisely the impish, comedic tone one would anticipate. The opera culminates in a harmonious chord that could easily serve as the ending to any film from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

At its most exhilarating, yet also its most uninspired, Bates’s score portrays the Escapist with heroic, brass-laden, blockbuster grandeur, seemingly drawing inspiration from Danny Elfman’s iconic soundtracks for Tim Burton’s “Batman” and Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” films. Perhaps it is fitting that this particular music is purely symphonic, serving as a backdrop to video rather than accompanying the singers directly.

While Bates’s music is undeniably skillful and at times enjoyable, it ultimately proves forgettable. This aligns with a trend observed in much contemporary opera at the Met since the company’s return post-pandemic. There have been notable exceptions, such as Brett Dean’s “Hamlet” and Kaija Saariaho’s profoundly moving masterpiece “Innocence,” scheduled for its Met premiere later this season.

However, the prevalent house style often leans toward topicality—exploring themes like race and sexuality in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” drone warfare in “Grounded,” and the anti-fascist power of art in “Kavalier & Clay.” While this thematic ambition is commendable, the execution frequently involves uninspired scores that demand little from their audiences, relegating them to mere background entertainment, a role foreign to true opera.

This is not the essence of opera. Its elevated form of life and narrative should seize your complete attention, possessing the power to utterly overwhelm you. But that power manifests only when opera is truly at its best.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Through Oct. 11 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org.