NEW YORK (AP) — Miles Mykkanen grew up wanting to sing and dance on Broadway, but he was turned down by the musical theater programs he applied to for college. So he had to “settle” for studying opera at the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center.
“At 18, when your sights are set on 42nd Street and then you’re getting called to 65th Street, it was weirdly a letdown,” he recalled. “But after a few hours I kind of slapped myself and said ‘Miles, pull yourself together.’”
That was 16 years ago, and he has since pulled himself together to such an extent that at age 34 he’s just opened the Metropolitan Opera season in a leading role in a new opera, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”
With a libretto by Gene Scheer and score by Mason Bates, the opera is based on the novel by Michael Chabon. Mykkanen portrays Sammy Clay, a Jewish kid growing up in World War II-era Brooklyn who teams with his cousin, Czech refugee Joe Kavalier, to create a comic strip hero modeled on Superman.
He’ll also be back at the Met in the spring in another modern opera, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence.” He plays the Bridegroom, a part he first sang in 2024 when San Francisco Opera gave the work’s U.S. premiere.
A role tailor-made for Mykkanen
Mykkanen had sung at the Met before, mostly attracting little attention in small parts, though his haunting rendition of the Holy Fool in Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” in 2021 drew critical acclaim.
“But this season is so ideal,” Mykkanen said. “All of a sudden my schedule came together, and I thought, my God, where did this all come from.”
When the Met was casting “Kavalier & Clay,” it was Michael Heaston, the artistic administrator, who thought of Mykkanen for the role of Sammy.
“I first became acquainted with Miles when he was still a student at Juilliard, and he immediately impressed me,” Heaston said. “He is a singer who can straddle genres, that rare artist who can sing a heartfelt operatic aria in one moment and then turn on a dime to a classic tune from the American Songbook.
“When I looked at Mason’s score and considered the vocal and acting demands alike, it seemed tailor-made for Miles.”
Mary Birnbaum, who taught Mykkanen acting at Juilliard, said she’s not surprised at his sudden rise to prominence.
“Honestly it’s what I thought he would do all along,” she said. “He’s got a very American sound, and it’s appealing and it’s lush. But also he’s bold as an actor … and he makes material look better for being in it.”
Mykkanen on playing characters with something to hide
By coincidence, both his roles this season are people who have something to hide. “They are characters with two huge secrets that are kind of gnawing away at them,” Mykkanen said.
In Sammy’s case, it’s his sexuality and ambivalence about his attraction to actor Perry Bacon.
“As a gay man myself, it’s been really rewarding for me to be working on this role, thinking back to my coming out process 20 years ago now,” Mykkanen said. “Sammy wants to believe there’s a future for him, but he keeps struggling and wondering if the world will ever get past its prejudice and accept him.”
“Innocence” deals with the lingering effects of a school shooting 10 years later, and as secrets are peeled away, the Bridegroom’s role in the horrific events is gradually exposed.
Mykkanen relishes the very different musical challenges the two roles provide. Saariaho’s score for “Innocence,” he said is composed with a kind of “mathematical” precision. “When I first cracked it open, it was overwhelming because of the time signatures, the key signatures. You’re trying to figure out, what was she thinking, how do you put this all together?”
“Kavalier & Clay,” written in a style that uses what Bates calls “symphonic electronica,” has been easier to learn. “I almost feel it’s starting to carve a new genre in opera,” Mykkanen said. “Something American opera has been trying to find in the last decade or so. … I don’t want to stay to say it’s musical theater, but at times it’s very colloquial.”
Still calling Michigan’s upper peninsula home
Mykkanen grew up in the remote Ironwood region of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where both his parents were high school band directors. Though he displayed a talent for singing at a young age, it was show music rather than opera that inspired him. When his parents found him a classical voice teacher, “For me it was a means to an end, to develop my voice so I could sing on the Broadway stage.”
Though his career now takes him all over the U.S. and to Europe, Mykkanen still calls the Ironwood region home. In 2019, he launched an arts festival called Emberlight that has grown into a two-month summer program of live performance, film, art shows and talkbacks with visiting artists. When he’s not on site he handles logistics remotely and also relies heavily on volunteers.
“Just being the person who with a lot of other people behind me brings art to this region which is rural and remote … It’s been one of the big blessings of my life,” he said.
And when he isn’t performing, he returns. “I have a room in my parents’ basement where I store my stuff,” he said. “When I’m between contracts I come back here and stay with my mom and dad. … I’lll call them from Amsterdam and say ‘OK, what are we having for dinner next Tuesday when I land.’”
“Kavalier & Clay” runs through Oct. 11. Also starring are baritone Andrzej Filończyk as Joe; soprano Lauren Snouffer as his sister, Sarah; soprano Sun-Ly Pierce as Rosa Saks, and baritone Edward Nelson as Perry Bacon. Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the production directed by Bartlett Sher.
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