SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Tomorrow evening, New York's Metropolitan Opera opens its season with an opera based on Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." Reporter Jeff Lunden talks with people who brought the tale of two cousins who create a superhero comic book, kind of like "Superman," to the opera stage.
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JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: Michael Chabon's novel is a page-turner. It's over 600 pages long, filled with incident and detail, and takes place in Prague and New York City during World War II and in the world of comic books. The opera, which runs about three hours with intermission, has music by Mason Bates and a libretto by Gene Scheer.
GENE SCHEER: Part of what I think I'm trying to craft, along with Mason, is the feeling of reading the book...
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SCHEER: ...To watch the world come to life of the comic book business and the energy of these two cousins, and then, of course, the challenges that they face. The idea is, how can we distill this into a musical experience?
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MILES MYKKANEN AND ANDRZEJ FILONCZYK: (As Sam and Joe, singing) Dime by dime and dream by dream.
ANDRZEJ FILONCZYK: (As Joe, singing) Dime by dime and dream by dream.
LUNDEN: While the novel spends chapters in various locales, the opera can present action happening simultaneously. After Joe Kavalier escapes Nazi-occupied Prague, he moves in with his cousin Sam Clay in Brooklyn. But composer Mason Bates says opera can be two places at once.
MASON BATES: You're seeing the family with so many challenges back in Prague. And then you see Joe, on the surface of it, working in this world of pulp fiction, but his motivations are to save his family. So that would allow me as a composer to have these worlds almost as if their, like, lighting or projections kind of come up in totally different harmonies, different textures.
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UNIDENTIFIED ENSEMBLE: (As characters, singing) Money, money (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (As character, singing) My (ph), when I close my eyes to dream.
LUNDEN: Director Bartlett Sher - no relation to Gene - keeps the action moving.
BARTLETT SHER: We have 30 different locations. And we're going from Prague to the top of the Empire State Building to an art gallery to a - you know, like, in (clicking fingers) - like that (clicking fingers).
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MYKKANEN AND FILONCZYK: (As Sam and Joe, singing) The Escapist.
LUNDEN: Sher's helped by sets which make extensive use of projections and animation that iris in and out like frames of a comic book. In one thrilling moment after Joe and Sam come up with the idea of their superhero, The Escapist, there's an orchestral sequence where animations of sketches morph into full-color drawings splashed across the set, says designer Jenny Melville.
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JENNY MELVILLE: And it's so nice to feel like you're allowed to kind of let rip without undermining any singing on stage, 'cause there are these big musical sections with no singing where we really can just take over the stage for a bit with some comic book artwork.
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SCHEER: One of the big issues in the book, and I think it's represented in the opera, is the place of art in one's life.
LUNDEN: Librettist Gene Scheer.
SCHEER: They create The Escapist to use art to combat fascism and also to deal with their own personal demons.
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LUNDEN: The Brooklyn cousin, Sam, wears a leg brace from polio and is a closeted gay man. Tenor Miles Mykkanen is playing him.
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MILES MYKKANEN: (As Sam, singing) I wish I could draw something like this.
MYKKANEN: Sammy is trying to figure out, one, who he is, and that's a big part of the story. And then, two, how he possibly can find some happiness in his life.
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MYKKANEN: (As Sam, singing) I draw like I walk, stumbling from place to place.
LUNDEN: Joe is desperately trying to get his family out of Prague. Polish baritone Andrzej Filonczyk is making his Metropolitan Opera debut in the role.
FILONCZYK: He struggles a lot. He misses his family. He blames himself for not achieving this goal to rescue his family. And Joe uses art as an escape from his sorrow.
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FILONCZYK: (As Joe, singing) In that world they've left behind, children with one chance to start again.
ANDRZEJ FILONCZYK AND SUN-LY PIERCE: (As Joe and Rosa, singing) This country...
LUNDEN: Mason Bates has written a score that's tonal and accessible, filled with arias, duets and ensembles with colorful orchestrations that include electronics and saxophones.
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BATES: There are so many entry points in this opera. It's really a big old show where you can come at it through the birth of comic books or the Holocaust or jazz in the '40s. I think young people - people who've never seen opera, I think, would get a kick out of entering these worlds.
LUNDEN: Including, he hopes, author Michael Chabon, who told him that, quote, "I'm really not that into opera." He'll be there opening night.
For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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