When composer John Adams decided to base his new work on Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” he was aware that the project might evoke an unhappy chapter in opera history.
Back in 1966, Samuel Barber had used the same play as his text when the Metropolitan Opera commissioned him to open its new home in Lincoln Center. That premiere was hobbled by an overly elaborate production and has gone down as one of the company’s more notorious flops.
