'Lincoln in the Bardo' Leaps From Book to Stage in Missy Mazzoli's New Opera
The opera adapts George Saunders’ novel with pyrotechnics, puppetry and kazoo passages as it marks Missy Mazzoli’s sixth collaboration with Royce Vavrek.
- On October 19, the Metropolitan Opera premieres composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek's 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' exploring the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the bardo where spirits linger between death and rebirth.
- Set in Georgetown's Oakhill Cemetery, the story follows ghosts refusing to accept their deaths while Abraham Lincoln visits his 11-year-old son Willie's crypt, paralyzed by grief over the boy's death from typhoid fever.
- Baritone Peter Mattei portrays Lincoln, soprano Christine Goerke plays the Reverend, and counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo stars as Miss Elise Traynor. The score blends kazoos with intense vocal passages, including a moment where Goerke spans two octaves.
- Director Lileana Blain-Cruz honors the work's 'fullness of life' with pyrotechnics and puppetry, including a black mustang named Zeus. 'People have desires and hungers, and we're silly and we're funny,' Blain-Cruz said of the production's tone.
- Met general manager Peter Gelb promises additional Mazzoli works at the Met in coming years. Meanwhile, novelist George Saunders has written a screenplay for a film adaptation directed by Duke Johnson and starring Tom Hanks.
20 Articles
20 Articles
George Saunders’s "Lincoln in the Bardo" Makes Its Stage Debut
Ryan McKinny, Peter Mattei, and Jonah Hoskins in the Metropolitan Opera’s adaptation of Lincoln in the Bardo. The Metropolitan Opera presents the world premiere of Lincoln in the Bardo, an operatic adaptation of the 2017 novel by George Saunders By Neal Goren In Tibetan, the word bardo means “gap.” It is also a Buddhist term for the transitional state between death and reincarnation. In the award-winning 2017 novel by George Saunders, Lincoln in…
How the Met Opera Made ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ Sing
When the composer and pianist Missy Mazzoli reached out to George Saunders for the rights to adapt his 2017 novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” into an opera, she didn’t have to do much convincing. “It was basically me saying, ‘Oh yes, please,’ ” Saunders tells Vogue ahead of the production’s world premiere.
Associated Press News
Met Opera’s New “Lincoln In The Bardo” Is “Quite Hilarious At Times”
Well, so says librettist Royce Vavrek. The subject matter — Abraham Lincoln grieving his young son Willie, who is stuck in the place between death and rebirth — would seem grim. So Vavrek and composer Missy Mazzoli took care to include humor and even joy. – AP
My Mother Lode
The Seattle Times‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ leaps from book to stage in Missy Mazzoli’s new opera
NEW YORK (AP) — The setting is a graveyard. Almost all the characters are dead. And then there’s Abraham Lincoln, alive but paralyzed by grief over the death of his 11-year-old son. If that capsule description makes “Lincoln in the Bardo” sound like a grim night at the opera, it’s actually far from that, according...
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