Watching Nixon in China

Last week I mentioned that I had watched the Metropolitan Opera's production of John Adam's opera, Nixon in China on PBS.  I believe I said it went "on and on".  Mater called me on this, having recalled that I had long wanted to see this opera and asked what I actually thought about the opera.  This post is in response to that question.

It is  true that I have long wanted to see Nixon in China, probably since I first heard of it being premiered in Houston in 1987.  Soon after the Houston Premier, the opera was performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and I really wanted to go. G was not interested.  This was in the first year or two of our marriage and he wasn't interested in John Adams, and was especially opposed to going to Brooklyn to hear John Adams. I didn't want to push it, and the train situation was more complicated then.  There were fewer trains this far up in the suburbs, and the last train was not very late, before midnight.  It was highly unlikely that I could make it back to Grand Central in time to catch the last train and I didn't want to drive down to Brooklyn by myself. 

24-odd years later G sought me out after seeing an ad for the opera on PBS, and asked me if I would watch Nixon in China with him.  Of course I said yes.  Wednesday night we settled down on the sofa to watch and listen.  G made Brandy Alexanders, rather large ones (Brandy Grandes as Duchesse remarked), I had my knitting, and I was grateful for the large screen television I bought when G came home from the nursing home and the excellent sound system, both added to the experience and made watching the televised opera truly gripping.  I almost managed to stay awake through the entire performance, dozing off only during the intermission.  Televised intermission interviews aren't nearly as interesting as intermissions in a real opera hall with all the excitement and hubbub and people-watching.

But what did I think of the opera?  

I actually enjoyed it very much, if you can use the word "enjoy" with this opera as it is not an opera one really watches for pleasure and light entertainment.  It is true that in the end I was struggling, and I was tired enough that I wished I could see the last act again.  This may not have been the case had I seen it live.  There is something about being there, in the flesh as it were, even if you don't get the camera close-ups of the singers, and although I have been to longer operas, performances usually start at 8, whereas in Eastern Standard Television Time, it started at 9, which I still feel is a late start.

The opening was truly dramatic and gripping with the plane descending, the Nixons disembarking, and the chorus singing an oddly matched combination of lyrically beautiful phrases, occasionally chopped up into odd bits, and accompanied by staccato and ritualistic music that seems to be harsh and clipped in contrast to the words.  I don't believe I had noticed this previously, when I was just listening to the opera, but I am not sure I really thought about the words, just the music.  Seeing it is different.  Seeing it with subtitles is different again.  I found this opening scene powerfully unsettling because of this profound disharmony. It was however a good opening for an opera that was, overall, also profoundly unsettling.

I felt that all the performances were good:  Madame Mao's vocal pyrotechnics, the rich sonorous voice of Chou En-Lai had philosophic overtones, Chairman Mao's rapaciously self-satisfied  outbursts, and the contrast of his emotionally overblown character with Nixon's sharp, contained, and ultimately repressive voice.

James Maddalena as Nixon seemed to capture that self-consuming angst that seems to be my overall impression of Nixon, and the complexity of the character comes through in the contrast of the public and more private scenes, although Nixon almost seems to be an over-contained character, chained by his own self-importance. 

In fact, I found the staging, with the sharp contrast between public and private, large scale events mixed with private moments, shocking.  An introspective character, alone on the vast stage was particularly unsettling, really driving home the lonliness and disconnect of the individual versus the drama of the political.  

Pat Nixon, sung by Janis Kelly, was particularly effective,  and she brings a real contrast on an emotional level to the politicking and sonorous self importance of the other players on the scene (with the exception of Kissinger.  I suspect there must be something brilliant in casting Kissinger as a buffoon.) The scenes where she is taken to a glass factory, a commune and a school are particularly tender and touching, a times filled with a naivety that was at times uncomfortably striking given the overall tenor of the opera. 

I found the ballet particularly difficult.  I was aware it was there, I knew the music and the story, but seeing it was completely different.  I was aware that there was a contrast between the story of the ballet and the and emotional reactions of the Nixons, particularly Pat, to the story. But seeing it on stage, with the blurring of the lines between dance and reality with Mrs. Nixon taking the performance as real and attempting to come to the aide of a young dancer was horrifying poignant with its commentary on the mental compartmentalization  of art, life, and politics which defines how we often perceive the world.  The blurring of art and life is a kind of microcosm of the opera itself, which also seems to push boundaries and blur the lines of what we we think we see in life, which become even more sharply emphasized with the shrieking of Madame Mao, angered at this perceived misinterpretation.

The Nixon's reaction to the ballet also seems embody one of the central dichotomies of the opera.  It is as if she expresses pure emotion and feeling in contrast to Nixon's calculating exterior, a shell of a person from which feelings have been excluded and synthesized into small vignettes which are only shadows of the actual experiences, to be echoed later in the closing act.

The final act was the most difficult for me, not because it wasn't good but because I was growing tired, and the reminiscences and philosophizing closed the opera with a rather open-ended question.   I would have liked to have the opportunity to go out and talk it over, to gauge other reactions to the piece.  Here is where I specifically missed attending a performance and the discussion afterward.  G was already over tired and bored as well.  The companionship is good and sweet but the ability to converse and dissect, to analyze a response and compare reactions is long gone.  I was left with no option but bed.

After all this, I think I still want to see it again.  I would like to be present at an actual performance, although watching this performance has made me see the opera differently than I had perhaps before.  It is an opera that needs attending with someone, an opera I would want to talk about afterward, that requires its own kind of muddling through, an opera that makes demands and therefore not an opera that makes for an easy evening. This of course also makes it an opera that most of my friends who eschew attending.