The Metropolitan Opera 140th season opener—The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay—had me at its first notes. The opening music with its urgency coupled with the image of a man in a straitjacket on a bridge about to throw himself into the Moldau in 1939 Prague while his younger sister fretted below, it all just went… to use comic book vocabulary… pow! I did not recover from that initial mind-blowing impact until the end.
Nor did I want to recover. It is rare that an opera production grips you instantly in the delightfully tormenting clutches of a film noir, both musically and visually. Transforming Michael Chabon’s 639-page eponymous novel into this pulsating, entertaining, heart-wrenching, evocative opera can only be the work of geniuses, and those geniuses are composer Mason Bates and librettist Gene Scheer. Add to that Bartlett Sher’s direction that showcased the complexity of this musical drama in the clearest manner. Sher’s multi-layered exposition of the tragic story alongside the projected drawings and comic strips, and the dance between reality and fantasy simply worked. His production is movie-like as it unfolds through three realms.
One realm is Nazi-occupied Prague from which one of the protagonists, magician and artist Joseph Kavalier, escapes the Gestapo and flees to New York City. The second realm is New York City—Brooklyn in particular—where Joseph, turned Joe, partners with his cousin Sam Clay, a polio survivor and suppressed homosexual to create a comic book Nazi-fighting superhero, the Escapist. The Escapist’s mission is to liberate all those under oppression and tyranny. And the third realm is the fantastical universe of the Escapist, whose instant success in the United States brings him into the radio world where he is portrayed by heartthrob actor Tracy Bacon. Tracy ends up falling in love with Sam and brings him out of his shell.
Lauren Snouffer as Sarah and Andrzej Filonczyk as Joe Kavalier in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera
Meanwhile, Joe lives his own New York love story with the brave Rosa Sacks who manages, through a clandestine network of connections, to get Joe’s sister, Sarah, on a ship called the Ark of Miriam. Tragedy strikes as Rosa’s ship is destroyed by a Nazi submarine. Almost insane with sorrow, Joe enlists to fight the Axis, breaking off all contact with Rosa and Sam. As for the final denouement, well… no spoilers.
Jennifer Moeller’s costumes along with the projections and lighting by 59 Studio, and the choreography by Mandy Moore contribute impeccably to bringing to life the three universes of this story in flawless transitions between visuals and movement.
The music itself is a treat. In the midst of dynamism and urgency that often sound like the soundtrack of a thriller, there are moments of tenderness, sadness, heartbreaking suffering, contemplation, and romance that pull at the heartstrings in luscious arias and duets. It’s as though the spirits of Puccini and Mascagni had occasionally whispered in Bates’s ear as he composed this. The cast and chorus live up to the Verismo-charged, romantically infused, sweeping allure of the music tinged with Eastern European inflections and sublime prayers in Hebrew.
Miles Mykkanen as Sam Clay in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera
In his house debut, Andrzej Filonczyk brought rounded, soulful, gleaming tones to Joe Kavalier. Apt at conveying tortured anguish as well as warm tenderness, Filonczyk projected vocal and physical charisma that kept eyes and ears glued to him throughout. As Sam Clay, Miles Mykkanen illuminated the musical canvas, like the brightest sun rays. His brilliant tenor voice rang out even and glorious throughout, especially tender in his interactions with Edward Nelson’s Tracy Bacon. Nelson emanated a sort of larger-than-life vocal and physical aplomb, turning electrically passionate in his interaction with Sam and softly sorrowful toward the end. Sun-Ly Pierce created a warm, sensitive Rosa. Her liquid, generous phrases mesmerized, especially in her radio appeal for help for European children as in her tender duet with Filonczyk. As Sarah Kavalier, Lauren Snouffer is the first singer we hear, and she reappears throughout the opera, her luminous voice both youthful and penetrating, like a rousing wake up call to action. Craig Colclough created a chilling Nazi officer through harsh, grainy sounds and terrifying body language and gestures. A fun touch was the character of Salvador Dalí, song by Efraín Solís, in lively, crisp tones and Spanish-accented diction, entertaining the audience through his comic delivery.
Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the orchestra and singers effortlessly through this dramatic, historical, fantastical tale, never drowning out the singers’ voices while employing the full power and brilliance of the orchestra as well as driving forward a heart-racing thrust. The Metropolitan Opera chorus proved in wonderful form.
What was exceptionally impressive about this production was the delicate balancing act that composer, librettist, and director created between the different genres and dramatic forces at play here. As opera fans are about to witness an opera whose plot is animated by a comic book hero, rolling eyes and skepticism might be the order of the day. And it’s quite possible that this could have been a failed experiment. The slightest exaggeration in the comic strip aspect juxtaposed on the atrocities of World War II, could have turned into a potentially caricatural or disturbing, outrageously irreverent experience. But herein lies the genius: everything is in just the right proportion to keep the story believable, respectful of historical tragedy, touching, and forward moving. The story also appeals to the imagination and to humanity’s eternal desire for a hero, whether he is Superman—in this case, the Escapist—or a soldier or a loved one left behind struggling to carry on and keep hope alive. And on top of this, to make all of it captivatingly cinematic without distracting from the music, is nothing short of a masterful feat.
Andrzej Filonczyk as Joe Kavalier and Sun-Ly Pierce as Rosa Saks in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera
For a moment, this performance made me think of the television series The Man in the High Castle. Notwithstanding, the story in the series conveys the opposite: history is reimagined into a post-World War II dystopia in which the Nazis and the Japanese have taken control over the entire world. But there exists a hero called the Man in the High Castle, who possesses films of alternate realities in which the Axis was never the victor. That is quite a convoluted plot, but at its core, there is the idea of the unseen hero as a catalyst to fight oppression. And in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, while the hero exists on paper—in comic books, that is—the creativity that brings him to life stems from humans imagining alternate realities in which tyranny and oppression are vanquished. This, in turn, gives those humans the impetus to fight to create new realities for themselves and their loved ones.
Bates and Scheer’s opera and Sher’s production captured this particular dimension so vividly. And it all served as a powerful reminder of what the United States has always meant to the oppressed and the persecuted: the land of refuge, the land of dreams, the land of creating a new reality. An immigrant myself, I couldn’t hold back tears at the moment when Joseph/Joe is making his way to New York, and the chorus sings a sort of ode to what America means to the persecuted while the Statue of Liberty is projected as it’s being drawn in all its glory. The moment is neither kitschy nor Hollywood-y nor superficial in any way. Nothing in the opera is. This music, the libretto, the story, the production can really get to you at a very deep level, especially if you are an escapee from an oppressive regime or from any kind of suppression and maltreatment based on ethnicity, race, or, like in Sam Clay’s case, sexual orientation. Not to mention that, before the performance began and after the National Anthem was sung by chorus and audience, Peter Gelb’s remark as he greeted the audience—to mixed reactions—unleashed a rousing avalanche of applause and cheers. Gelb said: “At the Met, we are proudly standing for freedom of artistic expression.”
A truly poignant, timely opening to The Metropolitan Opera’s 140th season!
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay runs through October 11 at the Metropolitan Opera. Tickets & info
Top photo: The Escapist superhero fighting off Nazis in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera
