I have to admit, seeing a giant phallus puppet onstage at the Metropolitan Opera was not on my 2026 bucket list.
But that’s but one of the unforgettable images in the new operatic adaptation of George Saunders’ acclaimed 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo created by Missy Mazzoli (music) and Royce Vavrek (libretto), who have previously collaborated on such operas as The Galloping Cure and Breaking the Waves. Remarkably, the production marks the first time the Met has given a world premiere to a commissioned opera composed by a woman, and it’s an astounding theatrical, if not musical, achievement.
The story concerns Abraham Lincoln’s (Peter Mattei) despairing grief over the death of his 11-year-old son Willie (the precociously talented Everett Sobers), who is trapped in the bardo, the transitional state between life and death. Sounds like a grim experience, and at times it is. But as that giant phallus might indicate, the opera also features raucously broad humor, since many of the other residents of the bardo are a vulgar lot indeed.
The librettist has thankfully omitted many of the characters from the novel, but there are still plenty of them onstage including Vollman (Ryan McKinney), the owner of the aforementioned appendage whose sexual frustration stems from the fact that he died before consummating his marriage; the gay Bevins (Jonah Hoskins), who committed suicide; the Reverend (the gorgeous-voiced Christine Goerke, playing a male role), who unlike the others, is fully aware that he is dead; and the earthy, lower-class Mr. and Mrs. Baron (Craig Colclough and Stephanie Blythe). There’s also Miss Elise Traynor (countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, outstanding), a 14-year-old girl who yearns for romantic love, and several Black characters including Thomas Havens (Joshua Blue), a slave who figures prominently in Lincoln’s decision to free the enslaved.
And of course, Lincoln, whose grief frequently compels him to visit Georgetown’s Oak Hill Cemetery to spend time in his son’s mausoleum. Willie is all too aware of his father’s presence but Lincoln has no idea that while he is cradling his dead son’s body Willie is looking on in confusion.
There’s not much of a story, really, except for the cemetery’s residents expressing their fears and desires in a series of arias. But the opera proves moving nonetheless, especially in the scenes in which Lincoln expresses his emotional despair via Mattei’s powerful baritone voice. And there’s also plenty of humor, with Vavrek’s libretto—largely faithful to and often quoting from the novel—laden with much (sometimes too much) comic shtick.
While there’s plenty of musical inventiveness on display, including a chorus of kazoos, Mazzoli’s score, often resembling cinematic underscoring, proves underwhelming, with nary a memorable melody to be heard over the course of the opera’s 160-minute running time. Without meaning to sound too much like Merrily We Roll Along’s Joe Josephson, it’s almost perverse how modern opera composers seen so unwilling to provide a tune you can hum.
But there’s much to look at in the inventive staging by Lileana Blaine-Cruz (LCT’s The Skin of Our Teeth) performed on Adam Rigg’s spectacular set filled with giant trees and augmented by literally haunting projections courtesy of Hannah Wasileski and Hana S. Kim. There are literal fireworks on display as various residents of the bardo manage to escape and, in the best Met tradition, even a live horse. Montana Levi Blanco’s often fantastical costumes are stunning, and James Ortiz has contributed imaginative puppetry and creature designs. And even though the music is not particularly memorable, it’s gorgeously sung and conducted with precision by Yannick Nezet-Seguin.
Lincoln in the Bardo opened October 19, 2026, at The Metropolitan Opera and runs through November 14. Tickets and information: metopera.org
