'Moby-Dick' adaptation sets sail at the Met, blending music, multimedia, and daring staging

When director Leonard Foglia was invited to stage an opera adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, his excitement was quickly followed by apprehension.

“I thought, ‘That’s great!’” he recalled. “Then I ran to a bookshop, bought the novel, and thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I in for?’”

Bringing Melville’s dense, 600-page literary classic to the stage was no small feat, but Foglia and his collaborators found a way. Their adaptation, composed by Jake Heggie with a libretto by Gene Scheer, opens at the Metropolitan Opera on 3rd March, running for eight performances until 29th March.

Adapting the epic for the stage

One of the greatest challenges was condensing the novel into a libretto while retaining its essence. Scheer managed to distil it down to 64 pages, keeping as much of Melville’s original language as possible.

“I’d say around 40% to 50% of the libretto is taken directly from the novel,” Scheer said. “But we had to reshape the phrasing to make it singable.”

Heggie and his original collaborator, Terrence McNally—who later withdrew due to health reasons—chose to remove the book’s land-based opening chapters, setting the entire opera aboard the whaling ship Pequod. Another significant change was renaming the narrator. Instead of Ishmael, he is referred to as Greenhorn throughout, a nod to his inexperience at sea. The novel’s famous opening line, “Call me Ishmael,” only appears at the end, marking his transformation.

“In the novel, Ishmael recounts past events,” Scheer explained. “But in theatre, we want to see the story unfold in real time. The opera is essentially about his education—how he becomes the storyteller.”

A demanding production and stellar cast

Tenor Stephen Costello, the only remaining cast member from the opera’s 2010 Dallas premiere, reprises his role as Greenhorn.

“He’s the only character with a real arc,” Costello said. “He boards the Pequod because he has nothing left on land. Either he’ll die at sea or discover who he really is.”

The cast also features Brandon Jovanovich as Captain Ahab, Peter Mattei as first mate Starbuck, and Ryan Speedo Green as Queequeg. The role of Pip, Ahab’s cabin boy, is a “trouser role” performed by soprano Janai Brugger. Karen Kamensek conducts the production.

Since its debut, Moby-Dick has garnered praise from audiences, critics, and even scholars. Bob Wallace, a Melville Society expert, admired the adaptation so much he wrote a book about its creation.

“Scheer and Heggie did a brilliant job of distilling the novel while keeping its essence intact,” Wallace noted.

A visually stunning spectacle

The opera’s music and libretto have been widely praised, but its striking visuals have drawn even more attention. With set designs by Robert Brill and projections by Elaine J. McCarthy, the production utilises multimedia effects to recreate the vastness of the ocean and the drama of whaling expeditions.

Critic Steve Smith of The New York Times described the staging as “ranging from striking to near-miraculous.”

One of the most spectacular sequences involves the ship’s crew leaving the Pequod in small whaling boats. This illusion is achieved using animated projections over a curved climbing wall, resembling a skateboard ramp.

“A lot of the thrill comes from the production team,” Scheer said. “Lenny told me, ‘Imagine it however you want, and I’ll figure out how to make it happen.’”

That commitment led to some physically demanding performances. In one scene, Pip, lost at sea, delivers a dramatic aria while suspended high above the stage, with projections making it appear as though he is floating on water.

“I told Janai Brugger during rehearsals, ‘You can be mad at me now because you’ll have to sing your hardest aria while hanging from a single wire,’” Foglia said.

Similarly, Queequeg and Greenhorn frequently climb ladders to perform from the ship’s mastheads, while Ahab must navigate the stage on a wooden prosthetic leg. The opera ends with Greenhorn—finally named Ishmael—grabbing onto a whale hook from a passing ship, lifting him to safety.

“I joke with the singers that the one thing they usually rely on—having both feet firmly on the ground—is exactly what I’ve taken away from them,” Foglia said.

A bold reimagining of a literary giant

Commissioned to mark the opening of a new opera house in Dallas, Moby-Dick has since cemented its place in the opera repertoire. Its combination of rich storytelling, sweeping orchestration, and breathtaking visuals has made it a standout production.

As the Moby-Dick opera embarks on its latest voyage at the Met, it brings new audiences aboard for a fresh perspective on Melville’s classic. Whether through soaring arias or innovative staging, this adaptation continues to prove that the great white whale still looms large in the cultural imagination.