Lilly Library

Amazing Adventures at the Lilly: Celebrating the World Premiere of the Kavalier and Clay Opera at IU

Teaching and outreach assistant Maggie McDonald makes some magic in the stacks in celebration of the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay opera at IU.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon tells the story of Joseph Kavalier and Sammy Clay, cousins who enter the nascent world of comic books in the era surrounding World War II. In 1939, Joe escapes occupied Czechoslovakia with the help of his former magic and escapism teacher; following several unexpected complications, he arrives in New York, where he meets his cousin Sammy and the two strike up a partnership making comics.

Together, the cousins bring a new superhero, the Escapist, to life. Inspired by Joe’s past as a student of magic and escape artistry, as well as the cousins’ Jewish background, Czech heritage, and anxieties about Joe’s family, the Escapist is a member of the Society of the Golden Key, who have pledged to fight tyranny and free the oppressed. He’s able to perform superhuman feats of strength, agility, and escapology and, on the cover of the inaugural issue of Radio Comics, is painted slugging Hitler so hard his head is knocked partially off-page.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was met with critical acclaim when it was published in 2000; it has been so well-received since then, in fact, that the story has been adapted into an opera by Mason Bates and Gene Scheer, which will see its world premiere on the Musical Arts Center stage on November 15, co-produced with the Metropolitan Opera.

The themes of Kavalier and Clay are reflected in several collections at the Lilly, including the recently acquired Ricky Jay Collection, once owned by magician, author, researcher, and collector Ricky Jay. Jay mss. II contains Jay’s research files on subjects including conjuring, vaudeville, the circus, ventriloquism, juggling, gambling, freak shows, occultism, spiritualism, and spirit photography. It includes some drafts of his books, articles, lectures, and more, including his 1986 Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women, as well as scripts and production materials for movies that he consulted on, as well. Also featured is Jay’s correspondence and the papers of Max Katz, Jay’s grandfather and an amateur magician who was part of the New York magic scene of the 1940s and 1950s, when much of the action of Kavalier and Clay takes place.

Two escapists pose on either side of a milk jug, which they were said to perform escapes from. The taller of the pair, on the left, appears more masculine and wears what appears to be a jumpsuit with a leafy print. The shorter appears more feminine and wears a sailor top with shorts and tights, hair piled atop their head.
According to notes in the Jay collection, these two are the Kings, a pair of escape artists working in 1903.

The Lilly hosts a collection of Marvel Comics first appearances, too; if you’re a fan of comics, these may be equally as thrilling as Joe Kavalier’s debut cover painting of the Escapist. First appearances in our collection include Spider-Man, Black Panther, Iron Man, and Captain America. Those more interested in modern and contemporary comics can find newer materials in the Michael E. Uslan Collection, which comprises comics and graphic novels from the 1990s to present day.

An advertisement for a performance by a magician, Deville, compares his feats to Houdini's. Houdini's name is larger than Deville's, suggesting that he'd draw more interest from a crowd.
Harry Houdini is a big name in the world of Kavalier and Clay, just as he has been in the real world from the time he lived to the present day. Here, an advertisement invokes Houdini’s name at a much larger scale than that of the actual magician, Deville, to lure in a larger audience.
The front page of a newspaper features a photo of the Great Zucchini, an escape artist who has been tied up. The accompanying story tells of his embarrassing failure to escape.
This 1905 newspaper clipping, scanned, copied, and saved by Ricky Jay, chronicles the failure of “The Great Zucchini” to perform a live feat of escapism in front of an audience in South Bend, Indiana.

Finally, while Kavalier and Clay may be most concerned with comics, they also bump shoulders with some notable Surrealists, including Salvador Dalí, who they meet at a party. The Lilly holds a bevy of materials on Surrealism, such as works by and about Dalí, André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, Kay Sage, Vitězslav Nezval, Jindřich Štyrský, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and more. 

A surreal illustration of Wonderland by artist Salvador Dalí, rendered in watercolor and ink, shows several butterflies perched in a tree. A dripping clock is skewered on its orange trunk, and a girl with a jump rope representing Alice looks on.
One of Salvador Dalí’s illustrations for a special edition of Alice in Wonderland, which is evocative of both the Surrealist presence in Kavalier and Clay and Luna Moth, a female superhero created by the pair

Those interested in working with any of the Lilly collections included in this blog post–including our signed copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay–can get in touch at liblilly@iu.edu. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay opera premieres on November 15 at the MAC; tickets are still available.

About the author: Maggie McDonald is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and graduate student in the Master of Library Science and MA Curatorship programs at Indiana University – Bloomington. Their academic and artistic interests include artists’ books, modern and contemporary art, erotica, pleasure, surrealism, zines, yearning, gender and the body and voice, fanfiction, and fowl. Maggie’s work has recently been featured in Tangent Gallery, Backspace Gallery, Great Honkers, and through an artist talk titled Work and Play in Practice. They live and collaborate with their cat, coauthor, and muse, Mister Elvis Peppers.

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