The Metropolitan Opera wasn’t always a vanguard of artistic conservatism. In its early years the Met presented the North American premieres of Carmen, Tosca and Salome and later commissioned its own world premieres from Puccini. But in more recent times the Met’s reliance on old-fashioned productions of standard repertory has earned it a reputation for traditionalism.
The general manager Peter Gelb’s commitment to presenting new operas, then, can be seen as a return to the Met’s artistic roots. You can like the new operas or not — Carmen and Madama Butterfly were notorious failures at their premieres — but Gelb should nevertheless be commended for taking the risk.
Mason Bates, whose The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay opens the Met’s season, is best known for his use of electronics and his second career as a DJ. But those fearing that the hallowed Met has been transformed into a techno club need not worry. Bates stays firmly within the sonic world of opera: Kavalier’s opening, with its ominous brass chords, echoes Tosca as its title character jumps off a bridge.
Sun-Ly Pierce, pictured with Filończyk, plays Rosa with steely resolve
TIMOTHY A CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Based on Michael Chabon’s novel, the opera tells the story of Joe Kavalier, who escapes Nazi-occupied Prague with said jump to live with his cousin Sam Clay in Brooklyn. Together they create The Escapist, a comic book superhero who saves the world from injustice even as Joe cannot save his own family from fascism.
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Librettist Gene Scheer condenses Chabon’s epic into two fast-moving acts, and Bartlett Sher’s production switches between Prague, New York and the fantasy world of The Escapist with the fleetness of a comic book. Bates’s score is heavy on pastiche, from the synthesizer-enhanced foreboding of a Hans Zimmer film score to the jazzy decadence of a Jerome Robbins ballet. The conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, draws vivid colour and momentum from the Met’s orchestra and chorus.
Bates’s vocal writing allows his singers plenty of opportunities to shine, with long soaring lines accompanied by repetitive orchestral arpeggios. Andrzej Filończyk is an appealing Joe, though the role pushes him to his vocal and dramatic limits. The pick of the cast is Miles Mykkanen, whose flexible tenor lends lyricism and strength to Sam. He’s heartbreaking in his scenes opposite his lover, the sturdy baritone Edward Nelson, and with Joe’s pregnant wife, Rosa, played by Sun-Ly Pierce with steely resolve and an attractively flickering mezzo-soprano.
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Other standouts among a large supporting cast include Lauren Snouffer’s bell-like soprano as Joe’s teenage sister, and Amanda Batista in imperious form as the hilariously preening Helen. Immigration, fascism, LGBT rights, Jewish identity: these topics are painfully relevant today.
★★★★☆
To Oct 11, metopera.org
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