The only opera featuring the line "we'll teach these motherfuckers how to dance." I mean, probably. If you know any others, tell me in comments.
I'd been very curious about this for a long time. I'm generally a bit leery of contemporary opera, for probably unjustifiable reasons. I mean, yeah, the fact that a work has endured for a long time is a good indication that it at least has SOMETHING to it, but new things can be good too! I swear! Probably! The only new opera I had seen was Nico Muhly's Marnie,which was...okay, I guess? The production was striking, but I can't say the music's exactly stuck with me. Still, what does a sample size of one say about anything? Nixon in Chinaseems to have endured pretty well these past thirty-plus years, so let's check it out.
Well, it's a bit light on plot, as you might expect. It's about, obviously, Nixon's landmark 1972 visit to China, and the six named characters are all historical figures: Richard and Pat Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Mao and his wife Chiang Ch'ing, and Chou En-lai. They have meetings and dinners and cultural events, and that's about it. It's not really political in any obvious sense; it's more about portraying the characters than casting judgment. Large portions of the libretto are taken from the actual historical record, and parts are influenced by classical Chinese poetry.
My reaction was a little mixed. On the positive side: the music is inventive and highly varied and frequently quite beautiful and in a few instances what I would describe as "Wagnerian" (which I can do, having watched all this Wagner lately). As for the action itself, there are a number of engaging scenes, but I think it would be difficult to argue that everything else isn't overshadowed by the absolutely awesome climax to Act II, which introduces Chiang Ch'ing while the characters are watching a ballet. You will not forget "I speak according to the book" in a hurry, I will tell you that much. It's nuts.
The production--which I think is the same as the original production, with some revision--is fine (also, conducted by the composer himself, certainly a rarity). The characters don't so much look like the people they're playing as generally suggest them, but they do a good job with what they have. The issue, though, is that they don't necessarily have a lot, and I'm not sure the whole thing is quite as dramatically ert as you would hope. Characterwise, the highlight is definitely Chou En-lai, effectively sung by Russell Braun, stoically dying of cancer while looking to the future and expressing doubts about his past actions. I have no idea how biographically accurate this is, but it's well put across. But I dunno, man. I do not feel the other characters are very well done by. Honestly, this Nixon just made me think of The Public Burning's Nixon, and how much better that was. The others aren't much better, and Kissinger just seems to be there because Kissinger was along on the trip, not because Adams wanted to really do anything with him. (Also, how has that guy not been dragged to hell by demons yet? Get with it, Lucifer). And there's no dramatic through-line that might render the individual characters less important. So...I don't know.
I think this might actually reward rewatching. It's obviously in a different idiom from the normal opera thing I'm used to, so having gotten acclimated to that, I might get more out of it the second time. It's definitely a serious opera by a serious composer, and I'll be watching more of his stuff.
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