Mason Bates' Met-bound opera 'Kavalier & Clay' based on Michael Chabon novel premieres in Indiana
BLOOMINGTON, Indiana (AP) — When composer Mason Bates approached Michael Chabon about turning his novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” into an opera, he said the writer told him frankly that “opera was not his thing.”
“He was very supportive of the endeavor and he gave it his blessing, but he said he couldn’t be involved,” Bates recalled. “He was really more giving it a thumbs-up on a rights level.”
So Bates and librettist Gene Scheer proceeded on their own to wrangle into operatic form Chabon’s sprawling, Pulitzer Prize-winning tale about two young Jewish cousins set over more than a decade before and after World War II.
Now, six years after Bates first read the novel and became inspired by it, the opera is bound for the Metropolitan Opera, due to open the company’s next season in September 2025.
But first it’s having its world premiere on Friday in what might seem an unlikely spot, at the Jacobs School of Music on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington. The premiere was originally planned for the Los Angeles Opera, but the company begged off, citing the costs involved.
Bloomington turns out to be not such a surprising choice given that the school has nearly 300 voice students and the Musical Arts Center, built in 1972, was modeled after the Met stage.
“The space and technology and those kinds of production elements were very attractive to the Met in terms of how the opera would play here,” said Catherine Compton, managing director of the school’s opera and ballet theater program.
“It’s been heartening to see how our students have reacted and been elevated by the Met’s creative team that’s been in residence here,” she said. “And also how the creative team has been able to adapt their process to...