Composer Mason Bates’ opera based mostly on Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” debuted in November at Indiana College. (Courtesy Sarah J. Slover/Indiana College Jacobs College of Music Opera Theater)
Nice literary works tailored for the opera stage should not precisely a dime a dozen, however they’re plentiful and various in type and plot. Benjamin Britten’s “Billy Budd” based mostly on the novel by Herman Melville involves thoughts, as does American composer Carlisle Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men,” tailored from the John Steinbeck novella. However the latest announcement from the New York Met about commissioning new operas impressed by two fairly modern works of fiction had my eyebrows vaulting skyward. Essentially the most stunning, maybe due to the scope and complexity of the novel, is “Lincoln in the Bardo,” the 2017 Booker Prize winner by George Saunders that mixes quirky portraits of deceased troubled souls zipping about in a graveyard with a heart-wrenching depiction of the sixteenth president visiting the tomb in the identical location of his beloved son Willie evening after evening. Woven deftly into the plot are dozens of info from historic analysis the creator carried out about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil Conflict that lend further heft to the narrative. It might appear that Brooklyn-based composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek have their work reduce out for them as they go about reweaving this wealthy tapestry of a literary masterpiece, which some critics have referred to as the very best novel of its decade. The opera may have a workshop presentation at New York’s Chautauqua Establishment in July earlier than a proper premiere on the Los Angeles Opera in February 2026 and a run on the Met the next October. Additionally remodeled for the Met is Berkeley creator Michael Chabon’s 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” from Bay Space composer Mason Bates and his librettist Gene Scheer, which debuted on the Indiana College Jacobs College of Music on Nov. 15 and can open the Met’s 2025 season in September.
(Courtesy Knopf)
(Courtesy Knopf)
Within the pipeline: Particular anthologies are coming our manner from the Knopf publishing home in honor of the centennial anniversary of The New Yorker journal. On Feb. 4, each “A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker: 1925-2025” and “A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker: 1925-2025” will hit bookstore cabinets. The previous, curated by journal fiction editor Deborah Treisman, collates brief tales by J.D. Salinger, Annie Proulx (her “Brokeback Mountain” first appeared in its pages), Shirley Jackson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Yiyun Li. New Yorker poetry editor Kevin Younger chosen the works for the second anthology, together with poems from Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, e e cummings, W.S. Merwin, Czeslaw Milosz, Sandra Cisneros and Amanda Gorman. The brief tales cowl a whopping 1,152 pages; the poetry version clocks in at 1,102, and each retail for $50.
“Gulliver’s Travels,” the animated model, may be seen free of charge on-line. (YouTube Cult Cinema Classics screenshot)
On-line freebies galore: Hollywood has the opera phases of the world outgunned in relation to turning literary classics into fodder for the silver display, and YouTube has taken benefit of it by establishing a curated channel of them referred to as “Cult Cinema Classics.” You’ll discover director Dave Fleischer’s 1939 animated “Gulliver’s Travels,” a double Oscar nominee, within the lineup, together with that very same yr’s “Of Mice and Men,” directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Lennie and Burgess Meredith as George and a best-picture winner. Additionally on the listing are1952’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner; 1970’s “Jane Eyre,” with Susannah York and George C. Scott; and 1950’s “New York Confidential,” starring Richard Conte and Broderick Crawford. Thus far, greater than 80 movies may be seen free of charge; discover the listing at youtube.com/c/CultCinemaClassics/movies.
(Courtesy Knopf)
Some distinctive awards: For the primary time in its 50-year historical past, the Nationwide E-book Critics Circle is asserting the lengthy listing of nominees in all seven classes of its annual awards, on the said concept that it’ll enable the jury of working critics and e-book overview editors to spotlight extra worthy works of literature. NBCC president Heather Scott Partington famous within the assertion that “The best books of 2024 were narratives of resilience, interrogation and imagination. They asked us to question power, art and genre.” There are 12 nominees in its books in translation class and 10 within the different six. The fiction lists consists of “The Anthropologists” by Ayşegül Savaş (Bloomsbury), “Beautyland” by Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), “Colored Television” by Danzy Senna (Riverhead), “Godwin” by Joseph O’Neill (Pantheon), “Great Expectations” by Vinson Cunningham (Hogarth), “James” by Percival Everett (Doubleday), “My Friends” by Hisham Matar (Random Home), “Sister Deborah” by Scholastique Mukasonga (Archipelago), “Small Rain” by Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and “Us Fools” by Nora Lange (Two Greenback Radio). The opposite classes are nonfiction, autobiography (the late Alexei Navalny’s “Patriot” is notably within the operating), criticism, biography and poetry. The NBCC awards, based on the Algonquin Lodge in New York in 1974, settle for no nominations from publishers and cost no charges for entry. Finalists shall be introduced on Jan.23, and the winners will emerge March 20 at a ceremony on the New College in New York Metropolis. Discover extra info at www.bookcritics.org.
Hooked on Books is a month-to-month column by Sue Gilmore on present literary buzz and may’t-miss upcoming e-book occasions. Search for it right here each final Thursday of the month.
