Adams’ “Antony and Cleopatra” serves up banal bread and circuses in Met debut
There is a divide in John Adams’ opera career that’s not marked by any change in compositional style but by the departure of librettist Alice Goodman for the Anglican priesthood. Adams’ first two operas, Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, are masterpieces in large part because of Goodman’s librettos, which may be the finest since the 19ᵗʰ century. The music dramas since, often with Peter Sellars having a substantial hand in the texts, have often been full of problems, both musical and dramatic.
Adams made his own libretto for his 2022 opera, Antony and Cleopatra, which premiered in San Francisco that year and made its Metropolitan Opera debut Monday night. He didn’t write it so much as edit a performing edition from Shakespeare’s play. And even with vibrant, fiery performances from baritone Gerald Finley and soprano Julia Bullock in the lead roles, the adapted libretto cripples the opera in fundamental ways.
Antony and Cleopatra distills the play to a core of Antony with Cleopatra in Egypt, his return to Rome at the death of his wife Fulvia, and the resolution of his rivalry with Octavius (tenor Paul Appleby) via marriage to the Emperor’s sister, Octavia (mezzo Elizabeth DeShong). That briefly forestalls the historical and dramatic resolution of the plot through the key battle of Actium and the deaths of the two lovers.
The music is in Adams’ familiar style, with shifting, stabbing rhythms and a lean, colorful orchestration that features a jangly cimbalom. There is plenty of energy and motion in the writing because the score is almost entirely about moving the plot forward and has almost nothing to say dramatically. The music, despite a general rigidity, is functional but has so little character that it fails as an operatic score.
This is an immediate problem. The curtain rises on drunken, loving revelry in Cleopatra’s bedchamber, but the music is agitated from the first moment, and already feels like the middle of the story. Act I is unrelenting, with the characters spitting dialogue at each other, and even as Finley, Bullock, and Appleby—who had a fine, piping superciliousness—did their best to carve out their longer lines, the music, with Adams in the pit, was like a churning, monotonous machine. There was no modulation of color or mood, no space for any range of characterization. The one moment of contrast, when Rome declares war on Egypt, did not favor Adams as the music was an adaption of the Prelude from Das Rheingold.
Act II, musically, was generally calmer, darker, and deeper than Act I. The pace slowed and there were aria-like passages for the main characters and even Enobarbus—an excellent performance by bass-baritone Alfred Walker, equalled by baritone Jarrett Ott in his house debut as Agrippa. A set piece for Cleopatra stood out from the quality of the rest of the score because again it was an adaptation; the “Orpheus Weeps for Eurydice” music from Stravinsky’s Orpheus.
While this was more satisfying, it felt like a cliché; Act I defining Antony as a man of action, Act II defining Cleopatra as a tragic figure. This had a shallow effect because of the limits of the libretto. On the larger scale, what Adams extracted and set was insufficient for the complexity of these characters. Antony is one-dimensional, veering from one enthusiasm to another, thinking of no one but himself. Cleopatra is flighty and comes off as brainless. It takes until the final scenes, after Antony is dead, to get at anything like the extraordinary complexity of Shakespeare’s invention.
That all depends on the words, because the music has so little characterization in it. Words are different in a libretto than a stage play, things meant to be spoken out loud don’t necessarily work when sung. Not only is the articulation entirely different, but music changes both sound and meaning. The danger of using Shakespeare’s words is that they are already some of the greatest spoken lines in the English language. Adams’ setting mostly diminishes the text, compressing the language into rapid passages with hardly any space to hear something flower. It’s all dangerously close to parlando, in which case it should have been left as a play.
The original production is by Elkhanah Pulitzer, making her Met debut, and it’s as shallow as Adams’ music. The staging juxtaposes a 1930s Hollywood style Alexandria with fascist- era Rome, a sophomoric combination of glamour and violence. The great filmmaker Bill Morrison makes his debut with the production design and projections that are the best thing about what’s on stage, but the squads of performers marching and tossing off fascist salutes convey nothing but a value-less fashion choice. Annie-B Parson’s lackluster choreography is more Maoist opera than anything else, adding one more point of confusion and vapidity to the evening.
Antony and Cleopatra runs through June 7. metopera.org
Posted May 13, 2025 at 9:03 pm by Kym Canter
Excellent truthful review. Bravo for that !
Posted May 25, 2025 at 12:22 pm by Myrl Manley
I’m thrilled to have seen the opera despite the discouraging review. It is beautiful, powerful and imaginative. The orchestra was magnificent and the singing extraordinay. It moves with a propulsiveness that few operas can match. (In fact, I can’t think of any.) The production was engaging from beginning to end. A masterpiece.
Posted May 25, 2025 at 12:37 pm by Mike Reichgott
Saw it yesterday and would have left at intermission but we had ordered lunch at the patron lounge. The second half didn’t help!
Posted May 26, 2025 at 1:23 pm by Moni Hampton
This review is spot on!
We attended Antony and Cleopatra at The Met on Tuesday, May 20th, and walked out at intermission. I’ve seen 28 operas and have never left one early. Every issue raised in Mr. Grella’s review matched exactly what made us leave.
I loved Adams’ Nixon in China at the Paris Opera (2023) and Aucoin’s Eurydice at The Met (2021)—I’m all for innovative interpretations and new works. I love The Met for taking risks. But this one was a tough watch. Is Antony and Cleopatra just a cursed opera? (The 1966 Barber version didn’t fare well either)
One final gripe: I don’t think opera singers should be mic’d, nor should PA speakers hang in The Met for an opera performance.
Thank you Mr. Grella for your precise assessment!
Posted Jun 03, 2025 at 10:52 pm by Judy R
I have NEVER left an opera early, and I came close tonight. I almost dozed off during act 1 several times. But after a diet coke and chocolate chip cookie at intermission, I perked up enough for Act II which was much better.
The singing, as always, was fantastic, but this review very much reflects my take on it.
Posted Jun 04, 2025 at 11:42 am by Bret Walrath
What a knowing review–so insightful and informed. I attended the Met Opera last night and even with the weaknesses so well-noted in this review, I did find the performance worthwhile, thanks largely to the talent on the stage. Moments of vocal artistry by Ms. Bullock were just astonishing, and the reveal of Caesar as despot truly unnerving. Act II also offered passages of melodic beauty, and I greatly enjoyed Mr. Adams’ vigorous conducting.
Posted Jun 04, 2025 at 6:49 pm by Connor M.
Spot-on review. I saw the 6\3 performance and left at intermission. The libretto chokes and withers under the rapid yet monotonous score, with nary a room to breathe or bloom, and the star-studded cast barely has their moment to shine among a dundering, awkwardly paced plot.
Some luscious set pieces, but the end product does not do justice to anyone; whether Shakespeare, Adams, the characters, the actors, or the art of Opera. Pity.
Posted Jun 08, 2025 at 6:54 am by Vikas
Went to the Met for the last night of the season super excited to see Antony & Cleopatra… and left at intermission. My wife and I were so bored we kept falling asleep. And for the first time in my 23 years attending Met Opera, they were delayed starting off the night by almost 30 minutes.
I will be paying a lot more attention to reviews before booking tickets again!