United States Bates, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: Soloists, Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor). Metropolitan Opera, New York, 21.9.2025. (RP)
The Metropolitan Opera opened the 2025/26 season with Mason Bates’s The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Bartlett Sher’s production is fantastic – by far the best work he has done for the Met – and Bates’s score with its mix of electronics and acoustic instruments is engrossing and carries real emotional weight. The Met cast it with fine talent, from leads to walk-ons. If only Gene Scheer’s libretto had more bite.
It was never going to be easy to craft a libretto from the award-winning Michael Chabon novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. The book is lengthy and features multiple complex plot lines. Scheer has succeeded with such challenges before, having created a masterful libretto from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick for Jake Heggie. Deviations from the book are expected, but did Scheer have to include a clichéd World War II scene and a happy ending? Those plot twists didn’t ring true.
First impressions may cause one to think that The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the opera, is a comic-book action thriller. It is anything but. There are, however, some great rock-’em sock-’em scenes where ‘The Escapist’, a comic book character created by Kavalier and Clay, takes on the Nazis and other forces of evil.
The story begins in Prague during the Nazi occupation. Joe Kavalier is a talented Jewish artist and escapologist, desperate to flee. Landing in Brooklyn, he and his cousin, Sam Clay, find success with ‘The Escapist’, an anti-fascist superhero who becomes hugely popular in comic books and then a radio thriller. Joe and Sam both have romantic relationships. Joe with Rosa Saks, a bohemian who also works at Empire Toy and Novelties (whose owner, Sheldon Anapol, has bought the rights to The Escapist comic book). Sam, a closeted gay man at ease with his sexuality, falls for Tracy Bacon, the actor who gives voice to ‘The Escapist’ on the radio.
Joe’s parents have been sent to their deaths in a concentration camp, but he has secured passage for his sister, Sarah, on the ship The Ark of Miriam. The ship is torpedoed by a Nazi U-boat, with all aboard perishing. That is when things go off the skids for everyone. With his mental state deteriorating, Joe joins the US Army, seeking to avenge the deaths of his parents. Tracy also enlists, but the effects of polio keep Sam stateside. The FBI raid Tracy’s wild gay bash of a going-away party, and Sam escapes arrest but is sexually assaulted by one of the FBI agents. The FBI agents don’t come off much better than the Gestapo.
Sam believes his life is ruined, but when Rosa reveals that she is pregnant with Joe’s child, he suggests they marry and continue with the comic strip. They make it work, with Rosa creating a female action figure, Luna Moth, to join in the battle against evil. Rosa has repeatedly written to Joe telling him that he is a father, but he has never opened the letters. Joe and Tracy find themselves on the same battlefield where Tracy tells Joe that he is a father and later dies cradled in his arms.
Joe begins to read Rosa’s letter, one of which contains a drawing of Luna Moth. She descends miraculously from the heavens and guides him from the battlefield to Long Island, where Rosa and Sam live. The ghost of Joe’s sister, Sarah, appears to push him through the door to meet his daughter, also named Sarah, and he reunites with Rosa. Sam leaves for California to write The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Scheer’s libretto places the action on three different planes: Prague in the 1930s, New York in the 1940s, and the action-packed world of ‘The Escapist’. Sam jumps off a realistic Charles Bridge into the Moldau to practice the Houdini-style techniques he will need to escape the Nazis. There are vast sweeping vistas of New York that capture the mystique and majesty of the city. Pier 39, where The Ark of Miriam was to dock, is realistically depicted. Digital imagery helps to evoke suburbia, where Rosa and Sam live and raise Sarah.
The battlefield where Joe and Tracy unite is set on a vast revolving disc, creating a bleak, powerful scene. As the men of the Met chorus sing, female employees at Empire Toys and Novelties do their bit to defeat the Fascists by pumping out The Escapist.
The creation of ‘The Escapist’ takes place not only on a desk, but also in digital imagery. The audience experiences it in real-time with drawings projected above the men as the work. The digital imagery is magical, capturing the excitement of creation and the triumph of success.
The score works on the same three levels. Bates’s subtle use of electronica adds layers of texture and color to the score and makes the comic-book scenes pop with excitement. In the Prague scenes, the music is dark and somber, with Wagner tubas evoking the weight of Nazi oppression, and jazz and Big Band sounds summon up New York with references to Gershwin and Bernstein. A repeating motif is a setting of the Jewish prayer ‘Ani Ma’amin’ that was written by Jews on a train heading to the extermination camps.
Bates leans into softer romantic sentiments, expressed in arias and duets. They are tuneful and laden with emotion. Joe and Rosa’s love duet would benefit from being shorter, as would the soldiers’ chorus. It seemed as if the music served to provide as many spins of the revolving disc as possible. Bates can capture emotion in music, and his vocal lines lie naturally in the voice: he has a real feel for opera.
Andrzej Filończyk made an impressive Met debut as Joe Kavalier. He has a polished, rich baritone that, coupled with his fine acting, brought Joe’s complex character to life. Although playing a man wearing a leg brace and tormented by his sexuality, tenor Miles Mykkanen as Sam exuded eagerness and positivity. His shining tenor made every note he sang sound 100% American. With her rich, throbbing mezzo-soprano, Sun-Ly Pierce captured all of Rosa’s vitality originality, and pluck.
Baritone Edward Nelson rivaled, if not topped, Mykkanen in the All-American Boy stakes. Soprano Lauren Snouffer made her house debut as Sarah, Joe’s younger sister, but the role only revealed the tip of her talents. Efraín Solís also made a Met debut as Salvador Dalí, whom Joe rescues from suffocating in an old-fashioned deep diving suit. The baritone didn’t have much to sing, but he made an impact as the Spanish Surrealist artist. There were nice turns from some Met stalwarts. Richard Croft was a somber, stoic Solomon Kavalier, who faced his oppressors and fate with dignity. Patrick Carfizzi put away his comic schtick for Sheldon Anapol, and rich-voiced Eve Gigliotti gave a nuanced performance as Esther Klayman.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin was in total command in the pit, creating a seamless whole out of the prerecorded electronic music and the orchestra. He had an unerring ear for balance and pacing. Bates’s score is full of color, and the orchestra reveled in it. The Met Chorus was at its impressive best throughout.
The opera ends much as Chabon’s novel does, but with hope and optimism, rather than uncertainty. It didn’t ring true to me, but that wasn’t a universal opinion. As I was leaving the Met, a somewhat younger man said to the woman he was with, ‘I hate to admit it, but the ending brought a tear to my eye’.
Rick Perdian
Featured Image: Jerimy Rivera (Escapist) © Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera
Creatives:
Production – Bartlett Sher
Set, Lighting, Video – 59 Studio
Costumes – Jennifer Moeller
Sound – Rick Jacobsohn
Choreographer – Mandy Moore
Chorus director – Tilman Michael
Dramaturg – Paul Cremo
Cast:
Sarah Kavalier – Lauren Snouffer
Joe Kavalier – Andrzej Filończyk
Gerhard – Craig Colclough
Sam Clay – Miles Mykkanen
Esther Klayman – Eve Gigliotti
Solomon Kavalier – Richard Croft
Sheldon Anapol – Patrick Carfizzi
Estelle Kavalier – Ellie Dehn
Radio announcer – Nathan Carlisle
Harry – John Moore
Helen – Amanda Batista
Rosa Saks – Sun-Ly Pierce
Salvador Dalí – Efraín Solís
Tracy Bacon – Edward Nelson
Undercover FBI agents – Garen McRoberts, Jonathan Elmore
Sgt. Saldo – Ross Benoliel
Wounded soldier – Ned Hanlon
Escapist – Jerimy Rivera
Dick Johnson – Steven M. Warnock
Young Sarah – Helen Rtveliashvili Mangan
Luna Moth – Bonnie Wright
Mandolin / guitar – Nathan Huvard
Spoiler alert? But great write up.