The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Mason Bates / Libretto by Gene Scheer / Based on the Book by Michael Chabon

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Upcoming Performances

Overview

In this exhilarating new adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, set shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, two Jewish cousins invent an anti-fascist superhero and launch their own comic-book series, hoping to recruit America into the fight against Nazism. Incorporating scintillating electronic elements and a variety of musical styles, composer Mason Bates’s eclectic score moves seamlessly among the three worlds of Gene Scheer’s libretto: Nazi-occupied Prague, the bustling streets of New York City, and the technicolor realm of comic-book fantasy. Bartlett Sher’s production provides spectacular visuals to match, with towering sets and proscenium-filling projections designed by Jenny Melville and Mark Grimmer of 59 Studio. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Opening Night premiere, and baritone Andrzej Filończyk makes his Met debut as the artist Joe Kavalier, who flees Czechoslovakia and arrives at the Brooklyn doorstep of writer Sam Clay, sung by tenor Miles Mykkanen.

Production a gift of Lynne and Richard Pasculano and the Rosalie J. Coe Weir Endowment Fund

Production sponsored by Rolex

Additional support from The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Endowment Fund; C. Graham Berwind, III; the Blavatnik Family Foundation; the Edgar Foster Daniels Foundation; Gordon P. Getty; and The Halff Windham Foundation

The Met gratefully acknowledges the support of the Laidlaw Opera Trust

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is part of the Neubauer Family Foundation New Works Initiative

Composed by Mason Bates
Libretto by Gene Scheer
Based on the Book by Michael Chabon

Commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera

A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

Languages

Languages sung in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Sung In

English

Titles

Title languages displayed for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Met Titles In

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish

Timeline

Timeline for the show, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Estimated Run Time

3 hrs

  • House Opens

  • Act I

    90 mins

  • Intermission

    30 mins

  • Act II

    60 mins

  • Opera Ends

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

World premiere: Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, 2024
Commissioned by the Met and based on Michael Chabon’s award-winning novel, Mason Bates’s new opera follows Czech refugee Joe Kavalier and his Brooklyn-born cousin Sam Clay as they create a comic-book series in an effort to recruit America into the fight against Nazism. As their superhero creation liberates victims of tyranny in issue after issue of The Escapist, Joe and Sam suffer at the hands of the real-world forces of fascism and intolerance

Creators

Mason Bates (b. 1977) has earned acclaim for his distinctive musical approach, which incorporates cutting-edge electronic instruments into contemporary classical compositions. In addition to large-scale orchestral works, he also composed the opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs in 2017. Librettist, lyricist, and songwriter Gene Scheer (b. 1958) penned the opera’s libretto, adapting the novel by Michael Chabon (b. 1963), who earned the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Bartlett Sher

Production

Bartlett Sher

59 Studio

Set, Lighting, and Video Design

59 Studio

Jennifer Moeller

Costume Designer

Jennifer Moeller

Rick Jacobsohn

Sound Designer

Rick Jacobsohn

Mandy Moore

Choreographer

Mandy Moore

Paul Cremo

Dramaturg

Paul Cremo

Tilman Michael

C. Graham Berwind, III Chorus Director

Tilman Michael

Mason Bates

Composer

Mason Bates

Gene Scheer

Librettist

Gene Scheer

Setting

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The opera is set during the Second World War, with the action moving between Europe—both Nazi-occupied Prague and the frontlines of battle—and various locations throughout New York City. It also features episodes in the fantastical world of The Escapist, Joe and Sam’s comic-book creation.

Videos

Music

Bates draws upon an eclectic musical palette to depict the opera’s sweeping story and diverse settings. The New York scenes feature inflections of jazz and big band, while the music for Prague is noticeably darker and more somber. His trademark use of electronica reaches its full fruition in the scenes set in the comic-book realm, but synthesizers and other electronic instruments provide further sonic color in subtler ways throughout the score. And for all his mastery of the orchestra, Bates never loses sight of the human beings at the heart of this epic, stopping time in soaring arias and poignant ensembles for all of the principal characters.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay