Moby-Dick • The Metropolitan Opera
“The opening line of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is one of the most famous in literature. But Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, whose moody, monochromatic 2010 adaptation arrived at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday, conspicuously avoid placing those classic three words at the start. It’s an early declaration of independence, the kind that artists have always had to make when turning a well-known novel — especially one as sprawling and shaggy as Melville’s — into singing. Heggie, who also composed the well-traveled opera Dead Man Walking (2000), and Scheer, an experienced librettist, have narrowed one of the canon’s most overflowing works to its core plot. For readers who enjoyed Moby-Dick but yawned through the rambling digressions about whaling, do I have an opera for you. The compressed adaptation is direct and clear…”
