Nixon in China, Metropolitan Opera live relay, cinema, February 2011

In February 1972, Richard Nixon made a dramatic break to previous US foreign policy by opening up to China, visiting Beijing and meeting Mao Tse-tung and his foreign secretary Chou En-lai. Ten years later, Peter Sellars had the idea for turning this visit into an opera, and he put together a team, with John Adams as the composer, Alice Goodman as librettist, and Mark Morris as choreographer. The opera was first produced in Houston in 1987, and though each of the team claimed it was a joint effort, Adams’s music is surely the key feature, and has achieved well-deserved acclaim. This is the first time the Met has put it on, and English audiences may recall the same production at the English National Opera ten years ago. As before, Peter Sellars is the director, with Mark Morris in charge of the choreography, and on this occasion John Adams himself was in the orchestra pit.

Richard and Pat Nixon land at Beijing, all images Ken Howard

The story starts with the landing of the presidential aircraft, followed by a welcome ceremony for the visitors in which Chou En-lai enquires whether Nixon had a good flight. He says it was smooth, though the music conveys a different opinion. Meanwhile the chorus sings a repeated refrain of The people are the heroes now/ Behemoth pulls the peasant’s plow. When Nixon meets Mao and comments on foreign issues in relation to other countries in East Asia, Mao waves this away as the business of others — his business is philosophy. As Adams said in one of the intermission interviews, Mao is portrayed as either brilliantly philosophical or just senile., and within its six tableaux this opera allows the participants to express their world-views in a series of conversations or soliloquies.

Mao and Nixon

One of the most dramatic scenes occurs in Act II when Nixon and his wife Pat, Chou, Mao and his wife Chiang Ch’ing come together to watch a Chinese ballet in which an abusive landowner, played by Henry Kissinger, is thwarted by the courageous women soldiers of the State. The Nixons get emotionally involved in the action, and at the end, Chiang Ch’ing expresses her view of the cultural revolution. Her lines are shrill, including We’ll teach these motherfuckers how to dance, her music that of a coloratura soprano, and she is the only character portrayed unsympathetically.

The opera ends with Chou En-lai’s soliloquy “I am old . . .”, beautifully delivered by Russell Braun who gave a wonderful performance, holding his hand to his body as if in pain — only later was it known that Chou was suffering from undiagnosed pancreatic cancer. Kathleen Kim gave an excellent portrayal of Chiang Ch’ing, and Janis Kelly sang with sympathy and affection as Pat Nixon, a role she also performed at the English National Opera in a previous version of this production. Robert Brubaker performed well as Mao, and James Maddalena, who was the original Richard Nixon in 1987, repeated the role here though his voice may have faded a little with time. Richard Paul Fink sang the oafish role of Kissinger, and gave a fine performance in the Act II ballet.

The end of the ballet

The intermission interviews are a wonderful aspect of these Met broadcasts, and Thomas Hampson did a great job of letting the interviewees speak for themselves. Peter Sellars exuded enthusiasm from his toes to the end of his extraordinary hair-do, extolling Adams’s music and saying “it builds and has tension . . . rather like Mozart”. Janis Kelly was equally laudatory, calling it a “twentieth century masterpiece”. The sets by Adrianne Lobel were based on original photos of the trip, but it’s always difficult in these broadcasts to fully appreciate the sets since very few images show the whole stage, and the lighting seemed rather dark.

All in all this is a great piece of music theatre and I congratulate the Met for broadcasting it.

Review — La Traviata, Royal Opera, June 2009

The last time I saw this fine Richard Eyre production was in January 2008, but this time it was better, for several reasons: the preparation, the singing and the conducting. It seems Richard Eyre himself rehearsed the revival, which explains the excellent acting from the entire cast; the principal singers were Renée Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson, and the conductor was Antonio Pappano.

Renée Fleming gave a superbly sensitive performance as Violetta, brilliantly showing her fragility and death at the end, and Joseph Calleja sang like a god as Alfredo. I saw him perform the same role at the Lyric Opera in Chicago in October 2007, where I commented that his voice was full and romantic, perfect for the part, but on that occasion his acting was very wooden. Here he acted the part, and along with Thomas Hampson as his father, Giorgio Germont, we had a simply wonderful trio of top singers. Hampson interacted well with Violetta, cool and aloof at first, but warming to her as he began to believe her sincerity. Between father and son the interaction was powerful, and the father even threw the son to the ground at one point in the country house where he lives with Violetta.

With three brilliant principals carrying things off to such thrilling effect it seems hardly necessary to mention anyone else. But Sarah Pring was very fine as Annina, the maid to Violetta, and I much liked Richard Wiegold as Doctor Grenvil. Then of course the conducting of Antonio Pappano was sensitive and full of emotional energy. This was a terrific performance of Traviata, and if Renée Fleming omitted some high notes, it was only the dress rehearsal.

Finally I would just add that this is what the Royal Opera should be doing, giving the audience a production in which great singers can express themselves and provide the audience with a convincing account of an operatic masterpiece. It is sadly the case — and the recent Lulu was a striking example — that the Opera House occasionally hires a director who convinces the senior management that his unusual way of presenting an opera will somehow shed new light of matters that many members of the audience already understand very well. By a process of hyper-intellectual argument the director loses the plot, and the audience find themselves infuriated by un-theatrical nonsense. This was the perfect antidote. Thank goodness for Richard Eyre.

Thaïs, live cinema screening from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Dec 2008.

This was terrific. The production by John Cox, with lighting by Duane Schuler, was imported from the Lyric Opera in Chicago, where I saw it in December 2002, but here it looked much better. I think the stage designs have been improved, because I remember the desert scene in Chicago looking pretty shabby, whereas here it was cleanly stylized, and made a good effect. There were also wonderful new costumes for Thaïs designed by Christian Lacroix, and the designer’s name, which was Paul Brown in Chicago, was omitted so I suspect other changes were also made. As in Chicago, Renee Fleming was Thaïs, and Thomas Hampson was Athanaël. They were wonderful — she was glorious as a great courtesan, and as a convent sister in the desert, while he gave a strong portrayal of a repressed fundamentalist Christian, struggling to contain his own desires. Alain Vernhes sang the role of Palemon, head of the order of monks, doing a fine job vocally and with his stage presence, but I found Michael Schade disappointing as Nicias, the ex-monk and lover of Thaïs. He did not have the rich tenor of Joseph Calleja, who appeared in the concert performance at the Royal Opera in June 2007, and as an actor he was rather dull, apparently unmoved by the sexual allure of the great courtesan for whose favours he has sold valuable acres of land. She had to go it alone in that respect, only aided later by the simmering desires of Athanaël. Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducted with fine sensitivity, and the solo violin meditation was strongly and yearningly played by concert master David Chan, far better than the cloyingly weepy vibrato I heard in Chicago. These cinema screenings by the Metropolitan Opera cannot be as good as the real thing, of course, but by incorporating backstage information, such as details of the costumes, they do a superb job of bringing opera to the rest of the world. The Royal Opera’s pathetic attempt to do likewise, mentioned below, is simply embarrassing.