Introduction
Welcome, music lovers!
Courtesy of Houston Grand Opera
And if you also love theater that is both thought-provoking and moving and are a fan of incisively observant poetry, so much the better. For Nixon in China is an opera that has much to offer on all these fronts. Indeed, this is an opera that works simultaneously on many levels: there are references to a wide swath of the history of opera, while at the same time it breaks new ground with its focus on a pivotal episode of American foreign policy.
The fact that we’re in the middle of a heated election year will also make it hard to ignore how much of politics is theater. And as we draw nearer to the Olympics in Beijing, we see again and again the immense power that public spectacle can wield. Even though Nixon in China is rooted in a concrete historical moment, the opera considers the relation between history and myth, between reality and idealism, and — with especially memorable effect — the gulf between public and private selves.
Nixon in China offers us many points of entry to get to know the work. This is, no question, an ambitious first opera, but along with its more serious themes, it was always meant to be an entertainment as well. And with each encounter, I’m increasingly convinced that Nixon is a contemporary masterpiece, the kind of art that — for me at least — reveals more and more as it works its way into your ears and under your skin. But the real test is, quite simply, that it remains enjoyable whenever I come back to it. This is an opera about “news” — but distinctly not of the CNN variety. Instead, it takes us to a level where, to borrow a famous phrase of Ezra Pound, we experience “news that stays news.”
Course Structure
This course will be spread over the next four weeks. In Week One we’ll get an overview with introductions into the world of Nixon in China’s creators: composer John Adams, librettist Alice Goodman, and director Peter Sellars>. Then we’ll take a very detailed look at what happens in the opera (yes, Nixon visits China and meets Chairman Mao, but what else?…) — the details really do matter here. Then we’ll get an overview of the opera’s six principal characters, both in terms of their historical context and in terms of how they appear in the opera. In the following weeks we’ll dig deeper into the opera, focusing on one of its three acts each week. You’ll also find specific musical examples to help anchor the discussion and thread your way through Adams’s remarkable score. I also hope you noticed the John Adams interview link above. Make sure to have a listen, as this is the first of a series of fresh interviews with artists involved with the opera. Each week we’ll be adding on more of these special features.
Week Two will thus start in with the first act; we’ll also get a basic introduction to Minimalism in music and Adams’s distinct approach to this style. Week Three takes us through the second act and discusses the way Adams uses orchestration. In Week Four we’ll see what happens in the briefest yet most enigmatic of the opera’s acts, the third and final act and try to come to comes with what it tells us about the opera as a whole. We’ll also look back at how Nixon in China has been received since it first premiered in October 1987. One thing I really hope you get from this course is an itch to explore more contemporary opera—to realize that engaging operas are not confined to the past but are being created by people today, and that discovering them is not a chore but a source of delight.
A couple of notes: I highly recommend acquiring a recording of the opera (the one commercial recording of Nixon in China was made from the original cast, on Nonesuch). You can easily find it via online retailers like Amazon.com. Although I’ll be linking to specific musical examples, we’re limited in the lengths of our excerpts (to access these samples, just click the appropriate link and go by the easy-to-follow instructions for audio settings). Thus I’ll be referring to musical points (and timings) from the recording that extend beyond what is available in our onsite musical links. Also, to remain consistent with how names appear in the printed libretto and since the opera’s premiere, I’ll be using the original English spellings of Chinese names (e.g., Mao Tse-tung rather than Mao Zedong).
Interactive Bulletin Board
One thing no one can dispute about Nixon in China is that this is an opera which generates discussion! OPERA America has set up an online bulletin board where we can gather beneath a pleasant grove of cyber-trees and virtually discuss topics of interest. You will be asked to create a personal user account so as to be able to post, but it’s free and easy to do.
Online Learning is made possible in part by Target. The audio for this course has been generously provided by Rhino Entertainment. The streaming of the audio samples has been generously provided by StreamingCulture.
So, welcome and thanks for being part of this course on Nixon in China. I hope you’ll enjoy it!