Alternate Title Nixon in China: A Concert Performance of the Opera in Three Acts
Production Language English
Country of Origin United States
Description A concert performance of the opera in three acts.
Goodman's Nixon in China opened new doors and raised the bar for contemporary opera when it premiered under the direction of Peter Sellars in 1987. Richard and Pat Nixon, Mao Tse-tung and his wife, Chiang Ch'ing, Henry Kissinger, and Chou En-lai, although treated in a mythic abstract style, were nonetheless vividly drawn portraits of massive psychological intensity - an all-too-mortal cast whose efforts at communication were the first breath of détente.
In this concert version of the melodically luminous epic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and conductor Robert Spano ("a brilliant young American maestro who has a talent for stripping away routine" - The New Yorker) reveal the lush complexity of Adams' score and the human drama inherent in Goodman's tautly knit libretto. And baritone James Maddalena revives his acclaimed performance as Nixon. It is a heroic work about larger than life people on whose shoulders sit the fate of great nations.
Identifier 1999f.00674
