Description
Event Details:
Date: Saturday, January 24th, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM Central
Venue: MUSE Sturgeon Bay
Directions: 330 Jefferson Street, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin 54235. On the corner of Third Avenue and Jefferson Street in downtown Sturgeon Bay.
Phone: 920-333-2859
Email: tickets@musesturgeonbay.com
MUSE is officially an approved streaming venue for THE MET Opera: LIVE in HD! That’s right! You can experience the world of The MET Opera in your own neighborhood.
Due to critical acclaim and overwhelming audience response, the Met-premiere production of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, recorded live earlier this season, has been added to the Live in HD lineup beginning January 24.
In this exhilarating 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. Incorporating scintillating electronic elements and a variety of musical styles, 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 Filończyk 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.
Sung in: English
Estimated Run Time:
Act I: 90 mins
Intermission: 30 mins
Act II: 60 mins
Synopsis
Act I
In the early days of World War II, Joe Kavalier escapes from Prague, leaving behind his parents and teenage sister, Sarah, and arrives in Brooklyn to live with his cousin Sam and aunt Esther. He plans to make enough money to bring his family to the United States to escape the German occupation. Joe, a gifted artist and amateur magician and escape artist, and Sam, a wisecracking writer, create a comic-book superhero to rival Superman and use their comic-book stories to urge Americans to join the fight against the Nazis. Sam’s boss at a toy and novelty company, Mr. Anapol, takes a chance on them and backs the venture. The Escapist becomes a hit, spawning a radio show. Attending a broadcast, Joe and Sam meet Tracy Bacon, the actor who plays the Escapist. Joe also meets Rosa, a talented artist who works for the Jewish Children’s Fund, which ferries refugee children from Europe to the U.S. on its own ship, The Ark of Miriam. Joe and Rosa attend a gallery show benefiting the Jewish Children’s Fund, where Salvador Dalí entertains the crowd and Joe helps him escape near suffocation after the artist gets trapped in a diving helmet. Joe and Rosa discuss arranging for Sarah to board The Ark of Miriam, and as they plan for the future, they fall in love. In Prague, Joe’s mother is captured by the Germans and sent to a camp, and Joe’s father is taken in a raid led by Gestapo Commander Gerhard, as Sarah narrowly escapes. Joe and Rosa’s relationship blossoms, and Rosa confirms Sarah’s passage on The Ark of Miriam. Meanwhile, Sam and Tracy Bacon have fallen for each other. They share a Shabbat dinner with Sam’s mother, toasting the imminent arrival of Sarah’s ship in New York, and spend a romantic night atop the Empire State Building, where they discuss their plan to take a train west to Hollywood. When they discover a newspaper headline reporting The Ark of Miriam has been sunk by German torpedoes, they race to tell Joe, who is performing his magic act at a benefit for the Jewish Children’s Fund. They have Rosa tell him the news, and before a room filled with dinner guests, Joe has a breakdown.
Act II
Joe’s mental deterioration continues, worsened by the news of his parents’ and sister’s deaths. Hiding out in a warehouse, he imagines a surreal confrontation with Gerhard. Rosa, meanwhile, hasn’t heard anything from Joe for weeks and can’t find him anywhere. Acting on a clue, she goes to the warehouse and finds a makeshift studio Joe has set up but has trashed, a sign of his fraught mental state. Rosa also finds evidence indicating that Joe enlisted in the military and has shipped out. Sam, meanwhile, is attending a going-away party for Tracy, who has joined the military. The party turns out to be an exclusively gay affair, and when it is raided by the FBI, Sam hides while the others are arrested. A lingering FBI agent discovers Sam and sexually assaults him. Rosa finds a broken Sam, who can only say he is finished: He’s convinced he will be alone for the rest of his life. Rosa is distraught as well—not only has Joe disappeared without a farewell, but she’s also learned she’s pregnant. Sam offers to marry her and raise the child as his own. Rosa agrees, and they begin a life together, with Rosa filling in for Joe drawing the Escapist—along with a new character, Luna Moth, inspired by a story Joe made up for Rosa. Joe ends up on a battlefield in Europe, where he finds Tracy. Tracy shows Joe a letter from Sam telling Tracy to stop writing to him. Tracy is surprised to learn Joe has never opened any of the hundreds of letters Rosa has sent him—if he had, Joe would have learned that he has a child. Tracy is killed, and Joe is devastated by another loss. He starts opening and reading Rosa’s letters. One letter contains Rosa’s drawing of Luna Moth, who now appears to Joe and guides him out of the battlefield and to the house on Long Island where Rosa and Sam live. Outside the door, Sarah appears and gives Joe the final push to reenter his life, leading Joe to meet his young daughter, who is also named Sarah, and to reunite with Rosa and Sam. Sam boards a train headed for California and picks up his pen to begin writing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
—Paul Cremo
Cast
SARAH KAVALIER: Lauren Snouffer
ROSA SAKS: Sun-Ly Pierce
SAM CLAY:Miles Mykkanen
JOE KAVALIER: Andrzej Filończyk
TRACY BACON: Edward Nelson
SHELDON ANAPOL: Patrick Carfizzi
GERHARD: Craig Colclough
Creators
CONDUCTOR: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
PRODUCTION: Bartlett Sher
SET, LIGHTING, AND VIDEO DESIGN: 59 Studio
COSTUME DESIGNER: Jennifer Moeller
SOUND DESIGNER: Rick Jacobsohn
CHOREOGRAPHER: Mandy Moore
DRAMATURG: Paul Cremo
C. GRAHAM BERWIND, III CHORUS DIRECTOR: Tilman Michael
LIVE IN HD DIRECTOR: Gary Halvorson
