Amazing "Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay"

This past Saturday, I along with countless others braved the worst winter storm in years to attend the cinema screening of Mason Bates' and Gene Scheer's new opera, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

I had thoroughly enjoyed the opera's opening night broadcast enormously but, like everyone else I knew, furious at the Met for not scheduling this important new work for an HD treatment. Fortunately for the Met, all seven performances were sold out with tickets were as rare as the proverbial hen's teeth. Seizing the moment, the Met scurried to get cameras in  to record the final performances into the seamlessly edited HD recording  we saw Saturday. They also (wisely) scheduled four more performances during the winter break. Thi is good.

With the daunting task of crafting a libretto for an "average length" opera from Michael Chabon's 650 page Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Mr. Scheer, while commiting some gender re-assignments of several roles, did a remarkable job and delivered a text presenting more than enough of the duo's adventures to project and evoke this sprawling tale of war, comic books, fascism, adventure, sacrifice, freedom, love and - most beautifully - friendship. Everything you need to know is in there.

Armed with this, Mr. Bates' created a wide sprawling score, infused with his now familiar style combining traditional orchestrations with electric, synthesized sound, and the result feels just right.  While I admire and champion many contemporary composers, Bates has been on my radar for 20 years, and I can't think of a composer better equipped to tell this kind of tale. 

(Side note: Many critics and audiences have complained about Bates use of electronics, and how they "don't belong" in "classical music."  One may not like employment of synthesizers, electric guitars, etc., but the fact is electronics have been used in classical music for more than a century, employed by countless composers including Edgar Varèse, Gian Carlo Menotti, Olivier Messiaen, Kaija Saariaho, Philip Glass, John Adams .  . . so precedent has been more than just merely "set.") 

Bates refers to this synthesis of traditional and electronic sound, as symphonic electronica.  As one who has been a fan of (and involved in) the Noise Music scene, I was heartened to hear the incorporation of these strange sounds (along with all the foley work supplied for the radio show-within-an-opera) incorporated into a work, with its myriad style motifs propelling the story through a gloriously unique hybrid of operatic theatre. While I prefer my opera live and in the house, it was especially fun experiencing Kavalier & Clay at a cineplex - bringing world of the movies into the mix. Yes, some have complained specifically about that, but those people are always yammering and whining about something ain't they? (Rhetorical question, but the answer is "yes.")

Bates' style motifs (my name for whatever it may be called)  work brilliantly, switching between elements of jazz, swing, avante garde (the symphony electronica), folksong, Hip Hop rhythms and, when appropriate, grand olde Hollywood epic soundtrack magic .  While Bates is not a minimalist, he comfortably employs the brightness and quicksilver sound of that movement seamlessly into the fabric of his score. Influenced by what has come before him, With nods to (at least to my ears) Ravel, Weill, Bernstein, Wagner, Strauss, Prokofiev, and others Bates manages to create his own original sound world and it is a beautiful, haunting and always captivating one.

Eschewing the modern practice (well from Wagner onward) of adhering to vocal parlando, Bates has created arias, duets, ensembles, choruses that feel like classic standard operatic set pieces - and I love that nod to past traditions.  

The mindblowing production design from 59 Studio, easily rivals the most impressive physical productions the Met has put upon that great stage. Curtains, dissolves, projections, sets - all move the story - and its audience - from 1939 Prague through Brooklyn, Manhattan's gallery scene, office buildings, skyscrapers, a gay bar, warehouses, the Western frontline of the war, and, just as importantly, the fantasy world of comic books. Bartlett Sher's direction here with a perfect, if not name-recognizable cast, is perhaps the best work I've seen from him to date, and it showed in the way he paced the story's action, as well as the work with that remarkable cast. 

With his warm, resonant baritone, endearingly accented English, and physical presence, Andrzej Filónczyk strikes all the right notes as Joe Kavalier. Bringing the immigrant's sense of wide-eyed wonder, fueled by hopes and dreams of a better life in America. this part of the story felt especially prescient given what's happening to immigrants - and citizens - in these United States of America. We watch the rise and fall of Joe and seeing those dreams crushed through the rise of World War II's fascism, and it is devastating. As an actor, Filónczyk pulls us along through that heartbreak and redemption. It is a tremendous performance. 

The other title role was in equally excellent hands as tenor Miles Mykkanen's displayed all of the savvy, wit, ambition, along wit h the scarred insecurity and fear as the leg braced Sam with a clear, soaring tenor. It was impossible not to love Sam, and everybody did.

Sun-Ly Pierce (a singer I fell in love with in Des Moines Cunning Little Vixen) is Rosa who is very much  the anchor"and conscience of the show. Possessing a beautifully gleaming mezzo with a secure top, Ms. Pierce stole every heart. Her first act aria, Open Your Eyes reveals Rosa's earnest desire to rescue the child victims of the war. It was also the first sign I knew that I'd be in tears at what was yet to come. 

In some fun duel-casting, comic book hero The Escapist was portrayed by by a non-singing dancer, Jerimy Rivera, and "portrayed" by actor, Tracy Bacon who was beautifully sung by baritone Edward Nelson. Nelson, tall, blonde and handsome, Nelson was the epitome of the superhero-type, abundantly confident, openly gay, not quite garrulous but close, he is the opposite of closeted, fearful Sam, which makes their relationship both difficult and touching. The first kiss is not what one expects and was one - of many - moments that felt positively . . . well, cinematic.

As is often the case whenever he's cast, Patrick Carfizzi - in the brilliantly written character role of Sheldon Anapol - nearly steals every scene he's in. As the kindhearted, benevolent boss at Empire Novelty Company, Incorporated. Mr. Carfizzi never fails to impress and get to the heart of every role I've been lucky to see him in - and there have been plenty!

One of the most crucial roles in Kavalier & Clay, is Joe's 14 year old sister, Sarah. Not a big singing role, but whenever she is onstage - singing or not - she is at the heart of this epic story. Soprano Lauren Snouffer was not only believable as the braided teenager, she made me wish Sarah had more to sing.

How moving it was for me to see one of my all-time-favorite singers, Richard Croft, along with Ellie Dehn as Joseph's parents, Solomon and Estelle. Both were enormously moving, and I couldn't help but recall them working together nearly twenty years ago in Satyagraha (can it have been that long ago?)

The balance of the cast showed the careful attention the Met can lavish in bringing a new, challenging work to life.  

 Yannick Nézet-Séguin seemed to be charged by every element, presenting a reading that would be hard pressed to be improved upon, shaping and coordinating the myriad elements of orchestration, sound design, electronics, percussion (right down to the clicking of typewriter keys). I feel (and maybe am alone here) that he shines in this kind of material more than some "traditional" works. Bates score deserved this kind of treatment. 

For me, this is what contemporary opera can be: a great literary source inspiring a poet and then a composer, designers, directors, singers and players to present something that can touch thousands of people with its beauty.

One of the more fascinating things I've taken in about this opera is that audiences (generally) have been so powerfully moved both by this opera and its message, cheering, standing ovations (don't start on me with that) while it seems the majority of critics have either trashed it, or only given mild praise.  

I remember being glued to the premiere broadcast and, even without its visual element - being stunned into silence and moved to tears - as was the entire audience at my cineplex this past Saturday. It made the first review - Joshua Barone for The NY TImes - come as a bit of a shock damning it as "superficial."  I read how Scheer's libretto is cliché-ridden with no "meaning or purpose."  And while he positively cites the drawing projections, he complains about other design elements (e.g., the Clay's apartment). 

He damns Bates' score  as "uninspired . . . obvious . . . harmless . . . nondescript . . . forgettable" bringing up these were the same problems he had with Fire Shut Up In My Bones and Grounded - operas with "toothless scores that ask so l itle of their audiences."  His final paragraph beginning "That's not what opera is," is the final blow.  But he was not alone - the majority of "professional" reviews seemed to go out of their way - in best and most imaginative "I'm going to write a bad review with fun words." Some of the attacks were beyond laughable. One, complaining about the death of one of the characters and how it did not feel "tragic enough."  Or the number of reviews varying the theme of "the melodies are so banal you wonder why they bothered." And on and on they go.  How clever. they all are. 

But none of that matters to me - I - and almost everyone I know - loved the experience, and I've friends who were so moved by this - they went back to Wednesday's encore performance.  I'm thrilled that, despite any bad press - the Met saw the wisdom of bringing the production back during the break for four more performances beginning February 17 that, while not yet sold out, are already selling well.  I wish everyone in the company - and all future audiences - the very best.  I do hope that more positive word-of-mouth reviews will factor in more than the harsh criticisms of those who felt it a waste of time, money, and talent. 

As I end this, I'm reliving the opera's emotionally transcendant final scene, I can't help but think of another opera that affects me with its bittersweet but beautiful message of hope in this often confusing and sometimes dark world  Leoš Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen.  That's not bad company to keep. 

Viva Kavalier & Clay!