Karen Kamensek returns to the Metropolitan Opera to conduct "Moby Dick" by Jake Heggie

KAREN KAMENSEK returns to the Metropolitan Opera to conduct “Moby Dick” by Jake Heggie.

Performances on 3rd/8th/11th/15th/19th/22nd/25th/29th March 2025

“Following the haunting Met premiere of his first opera, “Dead Man Walking”, composer Jake Heggie returns to the company with his 2010 adaptation of Herman Melville’s sea-drenched, heaven-storming epic. A cast of standouts comes together on the decks of the Pequod, with tenor Brandon Jovanovich starring as the monomaniacal Captain Ahab, implacable in his pursuit of the white whale; tenor Stephen Costello as Greenhorn, the opera’s version of Ishmael; baritone Peter Mattei as the even-keeled first mate Starbuck; and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as the Polynesian harpooneer Queequeg. The cast also features soprano Janai Brugger as Pip, tenor William Burden as Flask, and baritone Malcolm MacKenzie as Stubb. Maestro Karen Kamensek takes the podium for a stunning staging by Leonard Foglia that arrives at the Met newly enlarged and refined following acclaimed runs in Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

“Heggie’s score evokes the grandeur of tone and scope of the novel’s prose, and from its very first bars, delineates individuals and ideas with quasi-Wagnerian motifs. The orchestra is featured prominently, as is the all-male chorus, who give voice to a range of emotions. The opera’s most striking moments come as solo voices are combined in duets and ensembles that express the many confrontations in the human journey: good vs. evil, love vs. death, hope vs. despair.“ Source: The Met Opera.