Nixon in China (Adams) - Part 3 of 17
Houston Grand Opera, 1987 Music by John Adams Libretto by Alice Goodman Directed by Peter Sellars Choreographed by Mark Morris Conducted by John DeMain Introduced by Walter Cronkite Richard Nixon.......James Maddalena Pat Nixon......................Carolann Page Chou En-lai....................Sanford Slvan Mao Tse-tung.................John Duykers Henry Kissinger....Thomas Hammons Chiang Ch'ing......Trudy Ellen Craney Mao's Secretaries...............Mari Opatz Stephanie Friedman Marion Dry Act One The opera begins at Beijing Airport. A detachment of Chinese troops marches on to the stage and sings a 1930s Red Army song, The Three Main Rules of Discipline and Eight Points of Attention. As the soldiers wait, an airplane taxis and lands on the stage - the Nixons and Henry Kissinger disembark and are greeted by Chou Enlai. As Nixon is introduced to various Chinese officials by Chou, he sings of his hopes and fears for his historic visit. Later, Richard Nixon and Kissinger visit Mao's study along with Chou. While Nixon attempts to set out his stall with a simple and simplistic vision of peace between America and China, Mao wishes to discuss philosophy with Nixon and speaks in riddles. The visit is not entirely a success, and the elderly Mao is soon worn out. Chou departs with Nixon and Kissinger. On the first night of the visit, a great feast for the American delegation is held in the Great Hall of the People. The Nixons and Chou gradually relax in one another's company as good food and strong drink takes its effect. Chou rises to make a toast to the American delegation, full of fulsome praise and wishes for peaceful co-existence. Nixon responds in kind, congratulating the Chinese for their hospitality and recanting his previous opposition to China. The party continues with mutual compliments and toasting. Act Two Pat Nixon is being escorted to various showcases of contemporary Chinese life - a glass factory, a health centre, pig farm and a primary school. However, the language of Pat's Chinese guides is stilted and formal - they hint darkly of the repressive side of Chinese life that lies underneath the façade shown to foreign dignitaries. Pat sings an aria of her own hopes for the future, a peaceful future of modesty and good neighbourliness, a future based on the values of the American heartland. Later that night, the Nixons attend the Chinese opera, to see a piece written by Madam Mao called The Red Detachment of Women. The piece is a simplistic display of politicised music-theater, with the oppressed peasants of a tropical island saved from their brutal landlord by heroic women of the Red Army. However, somehow the main characters are drawn into the opera, each revealing their true nature, with Pat Nixon defending the weak, Kissinger siding with the brutal landlord and Madam Mao's desire to save the peasants at all costs leading her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place. Eventually, a riot develops on stage with Chou and Madam Mao on opposite sides - the opera has become a rerun of the Cultural Revolution. Act Three On the Americans' final night in Beijing, it has become apparent to all that there will be no great breakthrough the Shanghai Communique is no more than words, a face-saving formula for the world's press to buy into. The main characters look back over their lives the Maos and the Nixons look back to the struggles of their early years together, Richard Nixon recalls his younger days as a sailor. Only Chou looks deeper, asking "how much of what we did was good?", before casting doubts aside and wearily carrying on with his work.
Comments
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I've always loved the Chairman's entry [3:18] where he's wheeled on supported by three secretaries/mouthpieces, said trio of ladies echoing his every word in low chords underneath his high tenor vocal line ... masterful dramatic writing in every sense from Alice Goodman's libretto through to Adams' voicing and orchestration. Nixon is an operatic masterpiece of the late 20th Century, and no mistake. It succeeds where so many other operas of the time failed (including in my opinion Adams' and Goodman's later Death of Klinghoffer).
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Unleash Chiang!
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San Diego Opera is doing NIC this month (March, 2015).
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Bravo, Duykers!
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lol
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Where else this opera has been performed? Does anyone know?
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@GrantL That was the most hilarious comment I've ever seen .Ever. Thank you for making my life so much better.
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Soo good!
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i think not
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I find much to enjoy here but I do wish there were surtitles as I haven't a clue what some of the characters are singing! I particularly like Mao swaying in with his three assistants and the way they chant his words. But for the most part I can not fathom what the heck Mao is singing after that!
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Pretty groovy riff at 3:21...!
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if you're serious, change job.
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Mao: "There is a paradox: among the followers of Marx, the extreme left--the doctrinaire--tend to be fascist." Nixon: "And the far right?" Mao: "True Marxism is called that by the extreme left. Occasionally the true left calls a spade a spade...and tells the left it's right!" And then Nixon's dumbfounded expression...absolute gold.
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A white Mao?!? A white Zhou Enlai?!? and terrible performances to boot?!? what nerve and disrespect for history. But what do you expect....white people fellating themselves as usual.
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@cernacerna: exactly
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Just brilliant. So different from anything before, and an amazing piece of minimalism. This scene stands out in my mind as one of the few times I was so nervous while watching a scene...when it ended, I finally relaxed.
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@broadwaywes I'm a classical singer, student of Krintján Johanssonn, and I quite know what I'm talking about. Again, this is just my opinion, but when I heard the singers comparing this to the Operas of the great Verdi, I just got even more pissed of! and besides, I noticed that so many production have always the same singers, they're probably the only one who wants to do it..
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@cernacerna This Opera is one the the Greatest pieces of music EVER composed, yes James Maddalena is older now, but the Met allowed him to play the part, as he was the one who originated it. I know what Im saying now wont change your mind, but bear in mind what the people on that stage are doing isn't something most people in the world even dream of doing, can you? most likely not.
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Most compelling opera of the last forty years. Adams' triumph that his music appeals to such a broad cross-section of people, way beyond the normal limits of opera - see the success of his contribuation to Io sono L'amore, for example. We need more of this -accessible, theatrical music that packs an emotional punch far more powerful than the usual self-focussed efforts of the high-priests of modern composition.
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@JeeRant well, I think the music is not good and very boring, always repeating itself, libretto very confusing, not poetical at all and the production suck... well, in my opinion at least. I'm for the great composers of the passed centuries, mostly
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