The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Mason Bates) Met New York 2025 Lauren Snouffer, Richard Croft, Miles Mykkanen

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay  
• Composer: Bates Mason  
• Libretto: Gene Scheer Based on the Book by Michael Chabon    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York  
• Recorded: September 2025
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Lauren Snouffer, Richard Croft, Miles Mykkanen, Amanda Batista, Patrick Carfizzi, Craig Colclough, Ellie Dehn, Andrzej Filończyk, Eve Gigliotti, John Moore, Edward Nelson, Sun-Ly Pierce, Efraín Solís
• Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin  
• Orchestra: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra  
• Choreographer: Mandy Moore  
• Stage Director: Bartlett Sher  
• Stage Designer: Jenny Melville, Mark Grimmer  
• Costume Designer: Jennifer Moeller  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Metropolitan Opera  
• Date Published: 2025  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Act I

In the early days of World War II, Joe Kavalier escapes from Prague, leaving behind his parents and teenage sister, Sarah, and arrives in Brooklyn to live with his cousin Sam and aunt Esther. He plans to make enough money to bring his family to the United States to escape the German occupation. Joe, a gifted artist and amateur magician and escape artist, and Sam, a wisecracking writer, create a comic-book superhero to rival Superman and use their comic-book stories to urge Americans to join the fight against the Nazis. Sam’s boss at a toy and novelty company, Mr. Anapol, takes a chance on them and backs the venture. The Escapist becomes a hit, spawning a radio show. Attending a broadcast, Joe and Sam meet Tracy Bacon, the actor who plays the Escapist. Joe also meets Rosa, a talented artist who works for the Jewish Children’s Fund, which ferries refugee children from Europe to the U.S. on its own ship, The Ark of Miriam. Joe and Rosa attend a gallery show benefiting the Jewish Children’s Fund, where Salvador Dalí entertains the crowd and Joe helps him escape near suffocation after the artist gets trapped in a diving helmet. Joe and Rosa discuss arranging for Sarah to board The Ark of Miriam, and as they plan for the future, they fall in love. In Prague, Joe’s mother is captured by the Germans and sent to a camp, and Joe’s father is taken in a raid led by Gestapo Commander Gerhard, as Sarah narrowly escapes. Joe and Rosa’s relationship blossoms, and Rosa confirms Sarah’s passage on The Ark of Miriam. Meanwhile, Sam and Tracy Bacon have fallen for each other. They share a Shabbat dinner with Sam’s mother, toasting the imminent arrival of Sarah’s ship in New York, and spend a romantic night atop the Empire State Building, where they discuss their plan to take a train west to Hollywood. When they discover a newspaper headline reporting The Ark of Miriam has been sunk by German torpedoes, they race to tell Joe, who is performing his magic act at a benefit for the Jewish Children’s Fund. They have Rosa tell him the news, and before a room filled with dinner guests, Joe has a breakdown.

Act II

Joe’s mental deterioration continues, worsened by the news of his parents’ and sister’s deaths. Hiding out in a warehouse, he imagines a surreal confrontation with Gerhard. Rosa, meanwhile, hasn’t heard anything from Joe for weeks and can’t find him anywhere. Acting on a clue, she goes to the warehouse and finds a makeshift studio Joe has set up but has trashed, a sign of his fraught mental state. Rosa also finds evidence indicating that Joe enlisted in the military and has shipped out. Sam, meanwhile, is attending a going-away party for Tracy, who has joined the military. The party turns out to be an exclusively gay affair, and when it is raided by the FBI, Sam hides while the others are arrested. A lingering FBI agent discovers Sam and sexually assaults him. Rosa finds a broken Sam, who can only say he is finished: He’s convinced he will be alone for the rest of his life. Rosa is distraught as well—not only has Joe disappeared without a farewell, but she’s also learned she’s pregnant. Sam offers to marry her and raise the child as his own. Rosa agrees, and they begin a life together, with Rosa filling in for Joe drawing the Escapist—along with a new character, Luna Moth, inspired by a story Joe made up for Rosa. Joe ends up on a battlefield in Europe, where he finds Tracy. Tracy shows Joe a letter from Sam telling Tracy to stop writing to him. Tracy is surprised to learn Joe has never opened any of the hundreds of letters Rosa has sent him—if he had, Joe would have learned that he has a child. Tracy is killed, and Joe is devastated by another loss. He starts opening and reading Rosa’s letters. One letter contains Rosa’s drawing of Luna Moth, who now appears to Joe and guides him out of the battlefield and to the house on Long Island where Rosa and Sam live. Outside the door, Sarah appears and gives Joe the final push to reenter his life, leading Joe to meet his young daughter, who is also named Sarah, and to reunite with Rosa and Sam. Sam boards a train headed for California and picks up his pen to begin writing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

—Paul Cremo

 

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