NEW YORK, Oct 18 — Given its well-documented financial woes, the Metropolitan Opera might not seem a likely place to find multiple bold and costly new creative projects.
But the storied New York house thinks going big is its best hope: in the space of four days, it commissioned dual world premiere operas on two continents.
The ambitious sprint culminates Monday with the debut performance of Lincoln in the Bardo, an adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel about US president Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to confront the loss of his 11-year-old son as he faced heavy criticism early in the Civil War.
Bardo, written by rising US composer Missy Mazzoli, comes on the heels of the Warsaw premiere of the Met-commissioned The Mothers of Kherson, the story of Ukrainian mothers who tried to save their kidnapped children after Russia’s invasion.
