In one week, the IU Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater will present the world premiere of Mason Bates and Gene Scheer’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay., a new opera co-produced with the Metropolitan Opera. The show portrays two cousins in 1940s New York City—a refugee from wartime Prague and a closeted queer Brooklynite—who team up to create a comic book superhero who takes America by storm as he battles the Nazis and frees the oppressed.
As the production teams in the Musical Arts Center work hard to bring the visuals for this performance to life, the Department of Musicology is working to present a series of events to share important context around the work.
Friday, Nov. 8, 2024
12:30–1:30 pm | Ford-Crawford Hall (in Simon Music Center)
Roundtable with Members of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Creative Team
- Moderator Paul Cremo, Metropolitan Opera Dramaturg and Director of the Opera Commissioning Program
- Panelists: Michael Christie, Conductor; Jenny Melville, 59 Productions Scenic Designer; Bart Sher, Director; John Sellers, Metropolitan Opera Assistant General Manager for Production
Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024
6:00–8:00 pm | Recital Hall (in Merrill Hall)
Refugees and Comics: A Symposium on Themes from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
6:00-6:45 pm: From Europe to Bloomington —Judah Cohen, Welcome
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- Nicolette van Den Bogerd, “Szymon Laks and Eastern European Musical Recollections of the Holocaust”
- John Matthew Cowan, “Kavalier and Kaufmann: Two Artistic Lives in Exile that Led to Bloomington.”
- David Hertz, Personal Recollections of Jacobs’ Emigre Faculty
6:45-7:00 pm: BREAK
7:00-8:00 pm: Featured Speaker — Miriam Mora, University of Michigan: “The Jewish Multiverse: Writing, Cartooning, and Engaging in the Fight Against Nazism”
Friday, November 15, 2024
12:30–1:30 pm, Ford-Crawford Hall (in Simon Music Center)
Panel Discussion on Developing New Opera in Higher Education-Industry Partnerships
- Moderator: Tom Kernan, Assistant Dean for Artistic Operations, Jacobs School of Music
- Panelists: Abra Bush, David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean of the Jacobs School of Music; Paul Cremo, Metropolitan Opera Dramaturg and Director of the Opera Commissioning Program; Gene Scheer, Librettist; and a cast member
We hope you will be able to join us for one or all of these fascinating events!
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