In September, the Metropolitan Opera opened its season Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Based on the novel by Michael Chabon, with music by Mason Bates, production by Bartlett Sher and Lwwletto by gene Scheer. Weeks before the opening, the viewer visited the first technological genius to look at Bartlett Sher in his place.
“Noise! Make noise!” Sher holleged on stage as a cast Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Reorganizing the complex environment of the group with a large force of characters. In the disorganization of long tech rehearsals, the power of the stage is destroyed in the middle of the run. The players are shocked from foot to foot, stretched and made to fight stage and fall. They are waiting for the impressive but new “Irisephamental” system – a level technology that opens and closes around the square “eye” -to be discovered by itself.
Leaving his lunch out of sight in the director’s quarters, Bartlett Sher was always on his way. He walked around the stage as the Party Keeper, WiseCracking, laughing and answering questions. Talking to Edward Nelson, who plays Opera Tracy Bacon, what he does is submitted, each showing a different way of holding his body.
A traditional Californian who speaks with a little uptalk – his voice rises at the edges of sentences like a conversational mode with invitations appearing as a desire to connect with whoever he is talking to. Describing himself as a ‘removable artist,’ Sher told a thinker that he saw his talent as ‘good at Marshalling, he drew a lot of attention.’ His approach to Direction is experimental rather than single-minded. “I lead the test, I guide, I help to make decisions that bring out the best in the whole work – rather than thinking about my opinion.”
This penchant for weaving together various threads seems ready to bring to the stage of the story as a magnificent story as Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Chabon’s novel follows two Jewish cousins - Czech musician and magician, Joe Kavalier and Brooklyn-born writer, Sam Clay. Joe escapes from Prague with the Nazis and arrives in Brooklyn as a refugee after falling out with his beloved younger brother (he was transformed into a sister, Sarah, in the Opera). Together the cousins built Oscara comic book about a superhero fighting fascism with Houdini-Esque Tricks. The book is largely based on the life of Jack Kirby, the creator of Captain America. It covers a number of political themes that are constantly relevant to our times, including Fascism, Homophobia and antisemitism.
The opera, he said, presses Chabon’s story into the lives of its main characters and their relationships, all of which set aside the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Included in the work is the context of the ART scene in times of historical upheaval.
“They were brought about by Chabon’s assumptions based on how much art can help you understand or change life,” explains Sher. “Joe Kavalier goes to comic books as a way to deal with his pain and maybe change his pain. Whether or not that works to help you is the biggest turning point of this book.”
The place of political art and politics in ART has been made throughout Sher’s works as a director. He is often sought after for politically charged material – leading to the 2001 impeachment of Barbara Ehrenreich He was happy and he lost weightabout not being able to survive on minimum wage work in America, to a serious political revival South pacific, The king and me and My Fair LadyAaron Solin’s 2018 adaptation of 2018 To kill a mockingbird.
“I think theater is a catalyst for change,” Sher said. “I don’t think plays tell people how to change. We tell stories that show people’s ability to manage anger, face problems, see decisions.”
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay a wheel in politics in an attractive way. Gene Scheer Libretto tells a simple story about a few relationships in Warmime New York and Europe. The EPIC scope of Chabon’s novel is visually conveyed. Its abundance and richness are shaped in an operatic and sophisticated design. Screens restored iris inside and out, with designs from 59 studio put on them. Towering above the audience are images of midcentury New York in its dark Noir glory. We see comic superheroes that shine in primary colors or are animated as continuous looping akes. Setting the scene as a nightmare are grayscale paintings of Nazi death camps, reminiscent of Art Spiegelman’s – Join us.
As a director, Sher uses the whole stage – with all its dimensions and angles – in a cinematic way. Major characters appear on stage often, in large groups at parties, battles and crowd scenes. The superhero just flies through the wire. But everything is conveyed with a conquered beauty, they never want, they always invite. Donation of Sher to Kavalier and Clay It saves: The emotional input is visible. He doesn’t tell you how to feel or think.
Sher’s ever-present, multi-mazz approach feels right for our big, anxious moment. It dances away from bad meaning. “The themes of the kind of fading of fascism and the struggles that face art, against the political sense, we are against, we are very serious now but we are also very painful to find out how to express them.”
On the opening night of the reception, the political charge of our New Extraental entered the Opera House. Peter Gelb and Senator Schumer made speeches about the importance of freedom of speech – the former made fun of it, resulting in boos and heckles from frustrated constituencies. Even in this historic situation, depoliticization now seems impossible.
“I try to believe that good news comes when you need it most,” Sher said. “And it sounds to me like we’re lucky Kavalier and Clay it comes to us at this time. “
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