The Statue of Liberty makes a cameo in the Metropolitan Opera’s season opener, invoking a time when New York stood as a beacon of hope for Jews desperately fleeing Nazism.The image from “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” — which kicks off the Met’s 2025-26 cycle on Sunday — resonates at a time when President Donald Trump’s government is cracking down on the media and immigration.The opera tells the fictitious tale of Joe Kavalier’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 to Brooklyn, where he joins forces with cousin Sam Clay to try to raise funds to attempt to save Kavalier’s family.Their money-making venture? A comic strip featuring an superhero called “The Escapist,” who fights fascists. Tenor Miles Mykkanen, who plays Clay, calls the work “a 21st century opera with stories that we want to hear nowadays and stories that affect our lives, which I don’t think we can say about a lot of the standard repertoire.”- ‘Never done with fascism’ -The ambitious piece, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel published in 2000 by Michael Chabon, alternates in music and sets between Prague, Brooklyn and the fantastic world of The Escapist.The meditation on love, loss, family and the necessity of art comes on the heels of other recent Met productions that have sought to reinvent the medium.The world of professional boxing, a magical realist universe evocative of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the debate over the death penalty in American and the ravages of the AIDS era have all been handled on the Met’s stage.But “Kavalier & Clay” represents the first work in the Met’s 142-year history that revolves around a comic book superhero — a pop culture mainstay that may provide an entry point for those who may not usually try opera.Chabon’s book was the first time “a big serious art form like the novel had taken comic books so seriously,” said composer Mason Bates.”We still embrace superheroes because we are never done with fascism and authoritarianism,” he said. “We long for the simplicity of a good guy to fight back.”- ‘The stuff of opera’ -With a huge symphonic burst, the opera starts in the ominous fog of Nazi-occupied Prague at night before shifting to Clay’s Brooklyn brownstone and his bustling office.The novel was published at more than 650 pages, necessitating a heavy streamlining by librettist Gene Scheer. Choruses and dancers come and go in a quickfire staging that includes frequent jolts of animation beamed to a busy stage.Some moments link worlds, as when Kavalier reads a letter from his mother, who is shown as he imagines her in Prague.New York is “the city of freedom and hope,” she tells her son, who is played by baritone Andrzej Filonczyk, before the tone shifts.”I want you to forget us,” she adds, leaving a crestfallen Kavalier as Prague inevitably darkens further.Bates, who is known for works that combine symphonic and electronic music, said he immediately thought “Kavalier & Clay” would work as opera, a medium of “storytelling on a grand scale” he said.”You’ve got desperation, passion, art, Nazis and superheroes,” he said. “Mix all that together. That’s the stuff of opera.”Bates pitched the idea to Met General Manager Peter Gelb, who greenlighted the commission in 2018. For director Bartlett Sher, the opera is landing at a moment when the rise of fascism in World War II and the response of artists to that calamity feels particularly resonant.People go to theater and opera “to learn from our own history who we are,” said Sher.He said he is especially moved when characters “talk about what it means to be an immigrant fleeing a country politically and the refuge you seek in the United States.”That allows the audience to “think to ourselves, ‘Well, is that who we are?'” Sher added.

These days, Martina Grifaldo begins her mornings by posting a special Facebook message for her immigrant community.”May everyone who goes out today make it home safely,” Grifaldo writes in Spanish to her 171,000 followers.The Facebook page, managed with fellow activist Francisco Mendoza, aims to warn migrants where possible raids are happening in real time using photos and videos submitted by community members.Since President Donald Trump began his immigration crackdown after returning to power in January, federal authorities have increased their detention of undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, and even those with Latino features who have US citizenship or permanent residency.Social media has flooded with pictures and videos of these arrests, some of which turn violent, despite uproar from civil rights groups.Several times a week, Grifaldo, 62, goes out on patrol before the crack of dawn to monitor areas where immigration authorities usually operate in Houston, the fourth most populous city in the United States and the largest in the southern US state of Texas.”We start around 5:30 or 6 am with a ‘good morning’ message, and people send each other blessings. Then we ask: how are the roads?” said Grifaldo, director of the nonprofit Alianza Latina Internacional.- ‘Terrorized’ -US Immigration raids are carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, with images of frozen water becoming synonymous with migrant detentions.A common roadside warning sign, “Beware of ice on roads,” now carries a double meaning for Latino communities.”In our posts, we put a picture of an ice cube next to an image of a police officer, and we ask the public to help report” where they are, Grifaldo explained.Through their own observations and submissions from followers, Grifaldo and her collaborator Mendoza share information about raids taking place in the city.On several occasions, ICE agents carrying out raids did not identify themselves, did not wear official uniforms, and did not even show arrest warrants.This makes Grifaldo and Mendoza suspect that the raids are sometimes carried out by bounty hunters, though federal immigration officials have denied employing such methods.Even so, it is common for ICE agents to wear masks, military-style vests, and use violence when carrying out raids.”Every time we go out and check the reports, and we see them, we see how they treat our people, we feel… terrorized, because at any time it could happen to us,” said Mendoza, 57, head of Disaster Management at Alianza Latina Internacional.Grifaldo, who works as a public notary and researcher, volunteers her time to conduct the patrols along with Mendoza, a Mexican immigrant himself who runs an air conditioning and plumbing business.- ‘They keep us informed’ -As the pair drive in their truck, they continue to broadcast live on their page.They later stop for a bite at a fast food restaurant, invited by local employees in a show of thanks for their work.”I respect them because they are taking risks for us,” said Elizabeth, a 35-year-old woman who works at the restaurant and is seeking legal status in the United States.She came to the United States from El Salvador over a decade ago with her mother and son.”I take care of my mother, who has fallen ill. Imagine if she was waiting for me, and I did not come home,” she continued.Mendoza said it was “heartbreaking” how America treats migrants.”Undocumented people pay so much taxes… and we don’t receive anything back,” Mendoza told AFP. Undocumented workers paid $97 billion in taxes in 2022 alone, according to Americans for Tax Fairness.As Mendoza and Grifaldo conduct their patrols, they inspect work vehicles, such as vans and pickup trucks, that appear to be abandoned, as they can be left behind by migrant workers who have been detained.By the late afternoon, they wind down their patrol, and Grifaldo pens another message for the Facebook page:”Good night, warriors. Even though it’s hard, we have to rest. Tomorrow will be another day to continue resisting.”

US President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened Afghanistan with unspecified punishment if the Taliban-controlled country did not “give Bagram Airbase back.””If Afghanistan doesn’t give Bagram Airbase back to those that built it, the United States of America, BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!!” the 79-year-old leader wrote on his Truth Social platform.The vague threat came just days after he raised the idea of the United States retaking control of the base while on a state visit to the United Kingdom.Bagram, the largest air base in Afghanistan, was a linchpin of the US-led war effort against the Taliban, whose government Washington toppled following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. A massive, sprawling facility, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly raised allegations of systematic human rights abuses by US forces at Bagram, especially pertaining to detainees in Washington’s murky “War on Terror.”Trump has often lamented the loss of access to Bagram, noting its proximity to China, but Thursday was the first time he has made public that he was working on the matter.”We’re trying to get it back, by the way, that could be a little breaking news. We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump said at a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.US and NATO troops chaotically pulled out of Bagram in July 2021 as part of a Trump-brokered peace deal, as the resurgent Taliban took over swaths of Afghanistan before finally taking control of the entire country.Trump has repeatedly criticized the loss of the base since returning to power, linking it to his attacks on his predecessor Joe Biden’s handling of the US pullout from Afghanistan.Trump has also complained about China’s growing influence in Afghanistan.Later on Saturday, the US president was asked by reporters at the White House if he was considering sending US troops to retake Bagram.”We won’t talk about that, but we’re talking now to Afghanistan, and we want it back and we want it back soon, right away. And if they don’t do it, you’re going ot find out what I’m going to do,” he said.