Nixon in China: Metropolitan Opera On Demand

https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=811357014158&fbclid=IwAR0dolxFSsZPrZVi7wZAf2YhFl781GTiXi1ygmH19N73De0pbaDDVDfAoDs


Nixon in China
John Adams
Metropolitan Opera On Demand
#CoronaCouchOpera, Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
3rd April, 2020

4-stars

By the time I got the time to revisit Nixon in China as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s nightly opera stream and my #CoronaCouchOpera experience, it was late into the night. I couldn’t resist. When I checked, it turns out I was in the audience there 15th February 2011, three days after this iconic Peter Sellars production was filmed.

Despite the opera’s success, you don’t get the opportunity to often see it. Fortunately, however, I got to see the same production in June 2012 at San Francisco Opera and the following year, in May 2013, by VictorianOpera from director Roger Hodgman in a beautifully drawn artistic production.

It’s almost 50 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon’s world headline visit to China in 1972, after 25 years of of hostilities between the two countries. Revisiting Adams’ 1987 opera, despite China’s interim economic advances, political relations remain touchy at the best of times, with a side of xenophobia that never seems to go away. There’s still so much that remains in Sellars’ production that evokes the time with visceral strength when two conflicting nations strain to shake hands.

The mechanically choreographed nature of Sellars’ direction with choreographer Mark Morris, Adam’s hypnotic score with it’s frequent repetitions bound to Alice Goodman’s plain-spoken libretto and early Communism’s drab aesthetic all combine marvellously as manufactured-like components of heavy industry.

Since the 1987 world premiere, hefty winter-warming baritone James Maddalena has stepped into Richard Nixon’s shoes countless times and it shows in an assured performance that reveals much of his character’s duality of public and private life. As Chairman Mao, the power in Robert Brubaker’s broad tenor reaches such extremes that his philosophising seems to just about go down the gurgler. And how wonderful are the three translators used effectively to surround him in choreographed spin.

Pat Nixon is crisply drawn as a bright and affable First Lady by Scottish soprano Janis Kelly, a woman showing real heart and concern for matters. And Wow! Wow! Penetrating soprano Kathleen Kim shoots daggers with every note in a sensational show as the tornado-force Mrs Mao while baritone Richard Paul Fink is solid in voice and an unsavoury caricature as Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

One of the best performances comes from suave baritone Russell Braun, soldierly and commanding as Chinese Premier Chou. And whether the nuances of his words are understood or not, he sings with absolute charisma, his speech at the Great Hall of the People a notably big highlight.

The spirit and events of the first and second act, in particular, rise and fall marvellously in dramatic interest whereas, apart from the idea how personalities are explored and played out behind-the-scenes, there might not be much concentration ability left for the third act. Perhaps it has something to do with the absence of the en pointe Metropolitan Opera Chorus who marched and sang through the first two acts splendidly.

It’s a treat to see John Adams there to conduct as well, the momentum of the score turning and turning out great textural results despite Adams holding back too tentatively under a cast of singers with otherwise ample volume in supply. I have no doubt that, if we get through these trying times without too many opera companies being grounded permanently, there’ll be a few new outings for the work in 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of President Nixon in China.