From Grain Farms to the Met Stage: Librettist Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli’s ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’

Executive Overview

In the upper echelons of contemporary classical music, few creative partnerships have generated as much artistic gravity as the ongoing collaboration between composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek. Their artistic trajectory has reached a monumental milestone with the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Lincoln in the Bardo, an adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel. The project, born out of an ambitious pitch to Met General Manager Peter Gelb, transforms a sprawling, multi-voiced literary meditation on Abraham Lincoln’s grief into an epic operatic landscape populated by a graveyard full of ghosts.

For Vavrek, whose journey from a grain farm in rural northern Alberta to the stages of the world’s most renowned opera houses reads like a testament to relentless artistic discipline, this premiere is both a pinnacle and a validation. Having built a prolific career adapting complex literary and cinematic works—ranging from Lars von Trier films to historical presidential dramas—Vavrek has mastered the delicate mechanics of operatic adaptation: distilling expansive narratives down to their emotional cores while maintaining the poetic density required to inspire a visionary composer like Mazzoli.

This deep dive examines the genesis of Lincoln in the Bardo, the unique craft of operatic adaptation, Vavrek’s expansive creative philosophy, and the thematic undercurrents that define a body of work stretching from Scandinavian-inspired cinema to vital additions to the queer operatic repertoire.

Detailed Chronology: From a Rural Upbringing to the Met

The Cinematic Roots of a Prairie Boy

Royce Vavrek’s path to becoming one of the most sought-after librettists of his generation began far from the glittering foyers of New York and Toronto. Growing up on a grain farm in Grande Prairie, Alberta, cinema served as his primary window to the world. Local video rental stores offered an unexpected education in auteur-driven international film, introducing him to the uncompromising visions of directors like Lars von Trier, Atom Egoyan, and Alexander Payne.

This early cinematic immersion deeply informed his narrative instincts. Under the mentorship of high school drama teacher Paulette Long, Vavrek cultivated a storytelling style characterized by structural boldness, psychological realism, and a fearless embrace of complex human tragedy.

Moving away from the prairies, Vavrek pursued filmmaking at Concordia University before pivoting toward musical theater writing, earning a master’s degree from New York University. The true catalyst for his operatic career, however, was his acceptance into the American Lyric Theater’s (ALT) Composer Librettist Development Program under the guidance of Lawrence Edelson. The incubator program provided him with the structural tools, collaborative framework, and industry connections necessary to navigate the rigorous demands of contemporary opera.

The Carnegie Hall Encounter and a Six-Opera Partnership

The fateful partnership between Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli began in 2009 at Carnegie Hall. Mazzoli had attended a showcase of excerpts from Dog Days, an early opera collaboration between Vavrek and composer David T. Little. That afternoon, Mazzoli handed Vavrek a flyer for a similar presentation of her own developing opera, Song from the Uproar.

Recognizing a kindred spirit, Vavrek soon joined forces with Mazzoli to help complete Song from the Uproar. That initial collaboration sparked a creative alliance that has produced half a dozen operas, including Breaking the Waves, Proving Up, The Listeners, The Galloping Cure, and now, Lincoln in the Bardo. Over the past decade and a half, Mazzoli and Vavrek have grown alongside one another in the opera industry, buoyed by commissioning institutions and visionary leaders who took calculated risks on their uncompromising artistic voice.

Supporting Context & Metrics: The Anatomy of an Operatic Adaptation

Adapting established art forms—whether novels, films, or historical episodes—requires a distinct set of theatrical calculations. Opera is an elastic yet unforgiving medium where music dictates the passage of time. Consequently, sprawling dramatic spaces must be systematically compressed to grant the musical score ample room to expand, breathe, and develop emotional resonance.

Translating Saunders’ Polyphonic Novel

George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo is famously experimental, utilizing a polyphonic chorus of 166 historical and fictional ghosts speaking from the bardo—a Tibetan Buddhist state of intermediate existence between death and rebirth. Bringing such a maximalist text to the operatic stage presented unprecedented structural hurdles.

• Condensation of the Chorus: Recognizing that an opera stage could not physically or narratively sustain 166 distinct spectral voices, Vavrek made the critical decision to streamline the ghost chorus. He anchored the supernatural narrative around a core trio of spirits: Bevins, Vollman, and The Reverend.
• Preserving Essential Lore: Key historical and fictional figures were carefully retained to preserve the novel’s tragic core, including Miss Traynor, Thomas Havens, Mrs. Hodge, and Litzie (the latter added following a direct suggestion from Saunders himself).
• The Barons as Operatic Archetypes: The eccentric spectral characters known as the Barons were deemed indispensable. Vavrek explicitly conceptualized them as the operatic equivalent of Victor Hugo’s Thénardiers from Les Misérables, injecting dark humor and theatrical dynamism into the graveyard setting.

Comparative Metrics of Vavrek’s Adaptation Practice

Official Statements & Insights from the Creator

In an exclusive interview with OperaWire, Royce Vavrek reflected on the surreal nature of reaching the pinnacle of the operatic world, the mechanics of his craft, and the thematic threads connecting his prolific catalog.

On the Met Premiere and the Genesis of the Pitch

Reflecting on the realization of Lincoln in the Bardo at the Metropolitan Opera, Vavrek expressed a mixture of awe and professional fulfillment:

"It’s quite insane. Missy and I get to make our art with some of the most brilliant people in the world, on this massive stage, and we get to tell this crazy story. Dream come true, to say the least!"

Recalling how the project materialized from a high-stakes meeting between Mazzoli and Met General Manager Peter Gelb, Vavrek detailed the strategic thinking behind their pitch:

"Missy was called in for a meeting with Peter Gelb, and she was hopeful that he would offer her a commission. She called me the night before and asked me what I thought she should pitch for us to write. Knowing that George Saunders is her favorite writer, and this being shortly after ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ had been published, I told her that if given the opportunity to create something specifically for the Met, we should do something huge: like a huge graveyard full of ghosts, like Abraham Lincoln’s heavy grief. I believe it was the only idea she offered at that meeting!"

On the Art of Adaptation

Discussing the technical philosophy behind transforming longer literary works into concise librettos, Vavrek emphasized the primacy of emotional economy:

"Boiling something down to its emotional essence. Then finding the right amount of poetry to inspire the composer."

When asked whether writing wholly original stories alters his workflow, Vavrek noted that original works require an additional foundational step:

"The only thing different when writing an opera that is wholly original is that it necessitates an extra (first) step: figuring out the story! In theory, it should mean that it takes longer, but sometimes my imagination goes wild when you don’t have source material you are beholden to, and the work tumbles out of me quickly."

Future Outlook: The Ongoing Evolution of Contemporary Opera

As Lincoln in the Bardo cements its place in the modern operatic canon, Royce Vavrek shows no signs of slowing down. His forward-looking agenda reveals a multi-faceted artist dedicated to cultural exploration, geographic representation, and the systematic expansion of operatic storytelling.

Championing Canadian Narratives

Through his leadership role at Against the Grain Theatre in Toronto, Vavrek is deeply invested in bringing distinctly Canadian stories and artists to the forefront of the international conversation. He is currently developing an opera based on Robert W. Service’s iconic poem The Cremation of Sam McGee alongside composer Matthew Ricketts, alongside an ongoing conceptual exploration of an operatic adaptation of Anne of Green Gables with composer Luna Pearl Woolf.

Expanding the Queer Repertoire and Recurring Tropes

Vavrek’s catalog also stands out for its consistent integration of queer narratives into standard and contemporary repertoires. From Grover—the stuffed prairie dog serving as a gay best friend in The Wild Beast of the Bungalow (with Rachel J. Peters)—to chronicling the romance of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in 27 (with Ricky Ian Gordon), and capturing generational queer experiences in The Puppy Episode (with Matthew Recio), Vavrek continues to normalize and elevate LGBTQ+ narratives on the lyric stage.

And, much to the amusement of operatic insiders, while Lincoln in the Bardo diverges from the running joke, fans can likely rest assured that future Vavrek collaborations will inevitably find a way to incorporate his signature theatrical element: the bathtub.

Supported by a tight-knit community of world-class vocalists—including Lauren Worsham, Susan Bullock, Thomas Hampson, and Stephanie Blythe—Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli stand at the vanguard of a bold, uncompromised golden age for contemporary opera.