Met Opens Season With New Opera Based on Michael Chabon Novel, Starring Miles Mykkanen

The Metropolitan Opera opened its season with a bold new opera based on Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a world-premiere work that places Miles Mykkanen at the center of a star-driven revival of contemporary American storytelling on the opera stage. The production, with a libretto by Gene Scheer and a score by Mason Bates, follows the adventures of Sammy Clay, a Jewish boy growing up in World War II–era Brooklyn who teams with his cousin Joe Kavalier to create a comic-strip hero inspired by Superman.

The casting marks a notable milestone for Mykkanen, who grew up in Michigan’s remote Ironwood region and pursued opera at the Juilliard School after being denied entry to several Broadway-bound musical-theater programs. At 34, he has emerged as a leading presence in a season that blends traditional operatic form with a distinctly American tonal palette. In a recent interview, he recalled his early trajectory with humor and ambition: at 18, when Broadway seemed within reach, a detour into opera felt like a setback that quickly became a pivot toward a broader artistic identity.

When Met artistic administrator Michael Heaston first considered Mykkanen for Sammy Clay, he saw in him exactly the blend of vocal warmth and dramatic versatility the role demanded. “I first became acquainted with Miles when he was still a student at Juilliard, and he immediately impressed me,” Heaston said. “He is a singer who can straddle genres, that rare artist who can sing a heartfelt operatic aria in one moment and then turn on a dime to a classic tune from the American Songbook. When I looked at Mason’s score and considered the vocal and acting demands alike, it seemed tailor-made for Miles.”

Mary Birnbaum, who taught Mykkanen acting at Juilliard, echoed that assessment, placing the season’s breakthrough in a broader arc: “Honestly it’s what I thought he would do all along. He’s got a very American sound, and it’s appealing and it’s lush. But also he’s bold as an actor … and he makes material look better for being in it.” The pairing of Bates and Scheer with Chabon’s sprawling narrative has produced a score described by Bates as “symphonic electronica.” For Mykkanen, the music has demanded both technical agility and acting stamina, a combination that he says is redefining the operatic landscape.

The two leads trading layers of secrecy and desire align with a season already built around characters who hide parts of themselves from the world. Mykkanen notes that Sammy’s ardor must contend with the era’s intolerance, including his attraction to a male actor, Perry Bacon. “As a gay man myself, it’s been really rewarding for me to be working on this role, thinking back to my coming out process 20 years ago now,” he said. “Sammy wants to believe there’s a future for him, but he keeps struggling and wondering if the world will ever get past its prejudice and accept him.” The opera’s other central figure, Joe Kavalier, is a Czech refugee whose own ambitions are shadowed by wartime upheaval and the responsibilities of partnership with his cousin.

In contrast, Mykkanen will also appear at the Met in the spring in Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, a contemporary work in which the Bridegroom—roles he first performed during the U.S. premiere in San Francisco—unfolds alongside a story about the lingering effects of a school shooting a decade later. Mykkanen described Saariaho’s score as a study in “mathematical” precision, with intricate time and key signatures that demand a meticulous approach. “When I first cracked it open, it was overwhelming because of the time signatures, the key signatures. You’re trying to figure out, what was she thinking, how do you put this all together?” he said. By contrast, the Kavalier & Clay score has been “easier to learn,” he added, a reflection of its more direct, narratively legible approach even as Bates’ musical language pushes toward a new American operatic idiom that blends symphonic orchestration with contemporary textures.

Mykkanen’s preparation for both roles underscores a season that has growth written into its DNA. He notes that Kavalier & Clay’s score’s colloquial moments—counterbalanced by operatic scenes—reflect a broader trend toward an American opera vocabulary that can accommodate Broadway-like storytelling while staying within the operatic idiom. “I almost feel it’s starting to carve a new genre in opera,” he said. “Something American opera has been trying to find in the last decade or so. … I don’t want to stay to say it’s musical theater, but at times it’s very colloquial.”

Born to two high school band directors, Mykkanen’s musical roots are deeply tied to the idea of community music making. Though his initial dream leaned toward Broadway, a Juilliard education gave him the tools to inhabit characters with psychological depth and vocal expressivity that have appealed to both opera lovers and new-listener audiences. He continues to maintain ties to his home region; in 2019 he launched Emberlight, an arts festival in his hometown that has grown into a two-month summer program blending live performance, film, art, and discussions with visiting artists. The festival’s logistics often rely on volunteers and remote management, underscoring how Mykkanen’s career has become as much about building communities as about singing on the world’s stages. He says the experience of returning home—keeping a room in his parents’ basement to store his things and arranging visits with family when contracts allow—is a reminder of the balance between a global career and a place that shaped him.

Kavalier & Clay runs through Oct. 11 at the Met, with Andrzej Filończyk as Joe Kavalier, Lauren Snouffer as Sarah, Sun-Ly Pierce as Rosa Saks, and Edward Nelson as Perry Bacon. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the company’s new production directed by Bartlett Sher, a collaboration the Met has described as a synthesis of bold staging and intimate character work. The production’s visual and musical ambitions reflect the Met’s ongoing mandate to embrace contemporary voices while preserving the house’s operatic legacy, an effort that has drawn audiences from both traditional opera fans and listeners drawn to new American narratives.

Mykkanen’s season-long arc—anchored by Kavalier & Clay and followed by Innocence—offers a specific lens on how the Met is reimagining the modern artist’s path: a performer who moves between ensemble roles and headline leads, between an American songbook sensibility and a high-risk, forward-looking score. The season’s schedule emphasizes a kind of artistic migration, one that is at once a celebration of operatic craft and a candid investigation of how today’s composers are reshaping what opera can be.

As Mykkanen returns to the stage after a long path from Ironwood to Juilliard to the Met, his story also testifies to the enduring appeal of a performer who can tell powerful stories across genres. It is a reminder that opera, at its best, is not merely a preservation of tradition but a living conversation with the present—one in which a young tenor from the American heartland can become a voice for a wider, more inclusive, and more adventurous stage.