John Adams's Antony and Cleopatra Triumphs at the Met Opera
Read what critics are saying about The Metropolitan Opera's production of Antony and Cleopatra by John Adams.
John Adams's 2022 opera, Antony and Cleopatra, has arrived at the Metropolitan Opera to widespread acclaim, hailed by critics as one of the composer's most refined and vivid scores to date. The production, running from May 12-Jun 7, was conducted by the composer himself and directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer.
Drawing directly from Shakespeare's play, Adams's libretto distills the drama into a psychologically rich meditation on love, power, and ruin. Rather than glamorizing the historical figures, Adams "revels in their individual complexities," writes the Financial Times, "allowing them to inhabit the kind of tragic heroism Shakespeare surely intended."
Opera Now describes the opera as "a work of uneasy truths and flickering beauty, a tragedy in which emotion and image, passion and ruin, are tightly intertwined." New York Magazine echoed this, praising how "Adams plucked out Shakespeare's lines and mounted them like gems in a finely wrought score," resulting in a drama that feels "precisely engineered" and "elegantly executed."
The opera's orchestration has emerged as a central highlight. According to the Financial Times, the orchestra serves as an "omniscient narrator," channeling color, atmosphere, and psychological depth. One of the most distinctive instrumental choices—Adams's use of the cimbalom—was described as "incongruous yet ingenious," adding exotic flavor to Cleopatra's sound world.
The Wall Street Journal lauded the way "the music organically [drives] the words" and praised the Met Orchestra's "pinpoint clarity" and the cimbalom's "tangy resonance," calling the instrumentation "an essential part of the story." Parterre emphasized the "sheer profusion and interplay of musical colors, some of the richest and most vivid of his career."
Antony and Cleopatra is not only a major addition to John Adams's operatic catalog—it's a work of enduring power. The Wall Street Journal summed it up simply: "The piece is a keeper."
Opera Now/Gramophone
"With its arrival on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, Antony and Cleopatra reaches its most convincing form to date."
"[Adams] has created a work of uneasy truths and flickering beauty, a tragedy in which emotion and image, passion and ruin, are tightly intertwined."
Wall Street Journal
"With the music organically driving the words and the heaving orchestra expressing the characters' feelings, you could feel the poetry and theatrical propulsion of the original text."
"Under Mr. Adams's baton, the Met Orchestra's pinpoint clarity in this complex score, heightened by the tangy resonance of the cimbalom, a hammered dulcimer, made it an essential part of the story."
Financial Times
"The orchestra acts as omniscient narrator, conveying not only colour, atmosphere and churning movement but also the characters' complicated emotions. (The composer incongruously yet ingeniously employs a cimbalom — a Hungarian hammered dulcimer — to conjure Cleopatra's exoticism.)"
The three main characters — Antony, Cleopatra and Caesar — can all too easily come across as stock figures, thanks at least in part to their glamorisation by Hollywood, but Adams revels in their individual complexities, allowing them to inhabit the kind of tragic heroism Shakespeare surely intended.
New York Magazine
"John Adams's Antony and Cleopatra might be one of the most precisely engineered, solidly constructed, and elegantly executed operas of the past 25 years."
"Adams plucked out Shakespeare's lines and mounted them like gems in a finely wrought score. The orchestration — rich, fluid, and glistening with the vaguely exotic plinks of the cimbalom — has the plushness of an antique carpet."
Parterre
"Adams's extraordinary skill with the fine mechanics of orchestral and operatic composition mean that every scene has a clear and elegant shape."
"The sheer profusion and interplay of musical colors, some of the richest and most vivid of his career, make this score an especially satisfying listen."
Bachtrack
"Score, singers and stage direction come together to create memorable, relatable music drama."
> Further information on Work: Antony and Cleopatra
Photo: Karen Almond / Courtesy of Metropolitan Opera