The Queen of Spades at Metropolitan Opera

In this new adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, set shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, two Jewish cousins invent an anti-fascist superhero and launch their own comic-book series, hoping to recruit America into the fight against Nazism. Composer Mason Bates’s eclectic score moves seamlessly among the three worlds of Gene Scheer’s libretto: Nazi-occupied Prague, the bustling streets of New York City, and the technicolor realm of comic-book fantasy.

Bartlett Sher’s production provides spectacular visuals to match, with towering sets and proscenium-filling projections designed by Jenny Melville and Mark Grimmer of 59 Studio. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Opening Night premiere, and baritone Andrzej Filoczyk makes his Met debut as the artist Joe Kavalier, who flees Czechoslovakia and arrives at the Brooklyn doorstep of writer Sam Clay, sung by tenor Miles Mykkanen.