*Antony and Cleopatra*: May 20, 2025

Stephanie and I saw *Antony and Cleopatra* at the Met on May 20, 2025.

It's a newish opera by John Adams, it had its premiere in San Francisco in 2022. I'm a big fan of Adams and had seen all four of his previous Met stagings: *Doctor Atomic,* *Nixon in China,* *The Death of Klinghoffer,* and *El Niño.* Each of those works was strong musically and the productions were very effective.

This was a No and a No. We hated it, total stinkeroo. We left at intermission.

There were so many problems. Let's start with the music. The music was too busy, it was Ants in His Pants, which drives me up the wall. I was reminded of a conversation I had with my friend Karen Wexler years ago about Tom Cruise.

HER: Tom Cruise isn't an actor, he's a movie star. Which is a talent in itself, but it's not acting.

ME: But he was so good in *Magnolia.*

HER: That's not acting. That's tension.

*A and C* had a similar problem - - that's not music, it's busy-ness. It's not drama, it's not pleasant. Stephanie said this: "You know how in Strauss there are so many parts, and when you pick apart the score, you uncover all the amazing individual parts that you can't quite hear because the scoring is so thick? This is kind of like that, but it's not gorgeous like Strauss. I might like the individual parts in the Adams if I picked it apart, but it definitely does NOT stack up to a beautiful or interesting aural experience."

Adams himself was conducting and he appeared to be doing a good job. He conducted *Nixon in China* at the Met years ago and that orchestra was as loose as a wet sweater. They sounded tight and cohesive this time, but to what end? Similarly the singers all did good work but they were given such lousy material. Gerald Finley and Julia Bullock played the title pair. They had good chemistry and tried their best to make silk purses out of this sow's ear. Paul Appleby as Caesar and Elizabeth DeShong as Octavia came out on top: Appleby's music had a sense of drive and purpose that was missing in much of the show and DeShong had the unfair advantage of being placed in a refreshingly calm mood. She also (at least in the first act) had a relatively small role. Again, unfair advantage.

Adams adapted the libretto from the Shakespeare play "with supplementary passages from Plutrarch, Virgil, and other classical texts." I saw the Shakespeare play at American Players Theatre in Spring Green many years ago and had very little problem understanding it (I sometimes don't have the easiest time with Shakespeare). Samuel Barber did an opera of the play in the 60s, it was written for the opening of the new Met. That was a notorious fiasco, due more to the overloaded production than the opera itself. The Barber was done at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1991 and was broadcast on PBS - - I taped it (remember videotape?) and watched it a few times. I liked it a lot and Barber did a good job with setting the text. Adams did NOT. My eyes were glued to my Met Titles and even with the words in front of me I had a hard time following the text. It felt like Adams was obscuring the text rather than delivering it or illuminating it.

The production was also a major disappointment. Stephanie said, "If the music is gonna be bad, at least give us something to look at." Lots of dark grey or dark brown walls, dark lighting except for the singers who were brightly lit (another annoyance of mine). Adams and director Elkhanah Pulitzer wanted to give a sense of Golden Age of Hollywood Glamour and I guess you could see that was the intention but whoa, it was a misfire.

I'm going to make another movie analogy. There's an old saying that no one sets out to make a bad movie and I'm equally sure that no one sets out to make a bad opera. But somehow Adams found his way there! I read an interview with Robert Altman years ago. I'm going to paraphrase big time in what the interviewer says but I think the Altman response is pretty spot on:

INTERVIEWER: You did *The Player* in 1992. It was a box office smash and a critical darling. Then *Short Cuts* in 1993 - - not strong box office but loved by the critics. Then *Prêt-à-Porter* in 1994 which was a box office and critical disappointment but some people appeared to enjoy it (like Chris Ryan, for example). And then *Kansas City* in 1996, which was seen by about 38 people and was massacred by the critics. What the hell? Do you have no idea when you're making a movie if it's going to work?

ALTMAN: Every time I make a movie, while I'm making it, I think it's the greatest movie ever made.

I wondered if Adams might have had some misgivings a few months into writing *A and C,* if he wondered if this was really working. But I also wonder if you're a respected contemporary opera composer with a number of hits under your belt, and you're working on a commission from the San Francisco Opera, the Met, and the Liceu in Barcelona, if you have the luxury of reflecting and doubting yourself.

Stephanie said this on the subject: "I also wonder if these top guys EVER consult an editor or have an opportunity for anyone to listen/see a draft - of any of it. Since it all sounded the same, he could pick 15 minutes from anywhere in the opera to serve as a 'test.' See if people can read the wacky subtitles - I couldn't follow them!"