John Adams’s famous opera about President Nixon’s momentous encounter with Mao and Communist China in February 1972 features an innovative score that’s big and bold, but also understated. In the opening scenes brassy, percussive and raw rhythms pulsate as Air Force One taxis over to the red carpet where Chinese officials await. When the president disembarks and shakes hands with Premier Zhou Enlai — “I hope your flight was smooth? / Oh, yes; smoother than usual” — minimalism takes over, and flutes waver quickly and triangle bells ding intermittently.
At the Metropolitan Opera’s premiere of Nixon in China in February, nearly 25 years after the opera debuted in Houston, Adams himself conducted the performance, receiving cheers from the audience as he took his place on the podium. The opera illustrates key events from the iconic diplomatic journey — which was thoroughly documented by the media — including the leaders’ meeting in Mao’s study (“Founders come first. Then profiteers,” says Mao, as his advisers echo his sentiments) and the welcome banquet at the Great Hall of the People. Poet Alice Goodman meticulously researched American and Chinese sources to write the elegant libretto.
In one of the most moving — and comical — sections of the opera, Mrs. Nixon meets with the people of China. Her carefully constructed itinerary takes her to a glass factory, where the workers give her a glass elephant. She continues on to a pig farm, a hospital, and a school, where her enthusiastic Chinese guide presents her with “children having fun.” There, she wistfully remembers the days when she was a schoolteacher. The soprano Janis Kelly is wonderfully warm and playful as Pat Nixon, looking every bit the part in a red coat with a head of curly red hair and singing with an undeniable American twang.
The English-language opera, clearly written for an American audience, also delves behind the scenes and explores a non-official narrative of the presidential visit. On their last night in Beijing, the Nixons retire to the solitude of their bedroom and reflect on the early days of their marriage; here, baritone James Maddalena, whose voice is rich and powerful, brings out a softer side to the usually stiff president. With striking set design by Adrianne Lobel and inspired costumes by Dunya Ramicova, the Met’s Nixon in China stylishly captures the theatrics of diplomacy and makes small talk sound good.
Written by John Adams; Directed by Peter Sellars; The Metropolitan Opera; Lincoln Center; www.metopera.org
