Book Club kits celebrate IU opera premiere
Read "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" before November performance
Kits including four books, free or discounted ticket vouchers and discussion cards can be picked up at the Wells Library Circulation Desk beginning September 30.
*** ALERT **** As of 9/27/24 at 3 p.m. all book kits have been claimed! IU Libraries is very encouraged by your response and we will do more kits like this in the future. You can use the online form to request notification for future kits.
To celebrate the world premiere of the opera “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” IU Libraries’ William and Gayle Cook Music Library and the Jacobs School of Music offer free DIY Book Club kits with book copies and opera vouchers.
IU students, faculty, and staff can reserve one of 30 boxed book kits using an online form. The reserved kits can be picked up at the Herman B Wells Library circulation desk beginning September 30.
Each kit contains four free paperback copies of the novel upon which the opera is based, vouchers for buy-one-get-one free tickets to see an upcoming performance, Book Club question cards, and small surprises. The Jacob School of Music will offer performances of the opera at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 15, 16, 21, and 22 at the IU Musical Arts Center. The book club kits are designed to allow anyone to host a book club by picking up a box of four books, sharing with friends, and then choosing a way to discuss together after reading. Additional readers can use ebook options offered through IU Libraries, or locate a copy of the book from other sources of literature in the community.
In summer 2024, Nicolette van den Bogerd reached out to IU Libraries in her capacity as a research assistant to Judah Cohen, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Research, and Creative Activity at the Jacobs School of Music. The two wanted to include the library as part of their work to plan programming around the world premiere of the opera, which is based on a novel written by Michael Chabon. In 2001 it won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Working together with the Cook Music Library, the Book Club kit was developed, including a set of DIY discussion cards edited and organized by van den Bogerd.
Tony award-winning director Bartlett Sher will direct the premiere of the opera by composer Mason Bates and librettist Gene Scheer. It was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and co-produced with the Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater.
The opera was originally going to premiere at LA Opera, but that production was canceled due to financial concerns as the company continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. After its IU premiere, the opera will come to the Metropolitan Opera in the 2025-26 season.
Jacobs School of Music students will perform all roles and play all instruments in the November performances. Most of the creative team will travel from New York and London, but the overall production will be student driven.
The opera portrays two Jewish cousins — a refugee from wartime Prague and a closeted queer Brooklynite — in New York City during the 1940s. They create The Escapist, a comic book superhero who takes America by storm, as he battles the Nazis and frees the oppressed. During the performance, themes of identity, escape and freedom are revealed, while three disparate musical worlds come together.
The collaboration also includes plans for other events — symposia, master classes and lectures — to round out the educational effect and include as many students as possible, according to the Jacobs School of Music.
Contributors
Barb Berrgoetz
Guest Journalist
- Formatted for web by
Taylor Burnette
IU Libraries 2024-25 Railsback Fellow