The Metropolitan Opera will open its 2025–26 season with a new adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The production premieres Sunday, September 21, bringing the book’s blend of Jewish history, comic book origins, and immigrant experience to the opera stage.

The novel follows Joe Kavalier, an escape artist who flees Nazi-occupied Prague, and his cousin Sam Clay in Brooklyn. Together, they create “The Escapist,” a Nazi-fighting comic book hero, while navigating ambition, trauma, and the Golden Age of comics. The opera score by Mason Bates mixes orchestral, jazz, and electronic music. Director Bartlett Sher highlights the links between comics and opera as storytelling traditions rooted in lived experiences.

To capture the book’s Jewish themes, Bates incorporated traditional elements such as Ani Ma’amin, a song of resistance composed during the Holocaust. The Met is also hosting public programs, including performances and discussions at Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Cultural Center.

Historians note that Chabon’s novel helped bring attention to the Jewish roots of the comic book industry. Opera leaders see the adaptation as timely, with its themes of fascism, immigration, and resilience resonating today. “This feels like the right story to tell at this time,” Sher said, emphasizing the importance of presenting the Jewish perspective accurately.

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Source: JTA, September 2025