Nixon in China (opera) - Performance History

Performance History

The work had been commissioned jointly by the Houston Grand Opera, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Netherlands Opera and the Washington Opera, all of which were to mount early productions of the opera. Fearful that the work might be challenged as defamatory or not in the public domain, Houston Grand Opera obtained insurance to cover such an eventuality. Before its stage premiere, the opera was presented in concert form in May 1987 in San Francisco, with intermission discussions led by Adams. According to the Los Angeles Times review, a number of audience members left as the work proceeded.

Nixon in China formally premiered on the Brown Stage at the new Wortham Theatre Center in Houston on October 22, 1987, with John DeMain conducting the Houston Opera. Former president Nixon was invited, and was sent a copy of the libretto; however, his staff indicated that he was unable to attend, due to illness and an impending publication deadline. A Nixon representative later stated that the former president disliked seeing himself on television or other media, and had little interest in opera. According to Adams, he was later told by former Nixon lawyer Leonard Garment that Nixon was highly interested in everything written about him, and so likely saw the Houston production when it was televised on PBS' Great Performances.

The piece opened in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Music Critics Association, guaranteeing what the Houston Chronicle described as a "very discriminating audience". Members of the association also attended meetings with the opera's production team. When Carolann Page, originating Pat Nixon, waved to the audience in character as First Lady, many waved back at her. Adams responded to complaints that the words were difficult to understand (no supertitles were provided) by indicating that it is not necessary that all the words be understood on first seeing an opera. The audience's general reaction was expressed by what the Los Angeles Times termed "polite applause", the descent of the Spirit of '76 being the occasion for clapping from both the onstage chorus and from the viewers in the opera house.

When the opera reached the Brooklyn Academy of Music, six weeks after the world premiere, there was again applause during the Spirit of '76's descent. Chou En-lai's toast, addressed by baritone Sanford Sylvan directly to the audience, brought what pianist and writer William R. Braun called "a shocked hush of chastened admiration". The meditative Act 3 also brought silence, followed at its conclusion by a storm of applause.

After the opera's European premiere at the Muziektheater in Amsterdam in June 1988, it received its first German performance later that year at the Bielefeld Opera, in a production by John Dew with stage designs by Gottfried Pilz. In the German production, Nixon and Mao were given putty noses in what the Los Angeles Times considered "a garish and heavy-handed satire". Also in 1988 the opera received its United Kingdom premiere, at the Edinburgh International Festival in August.

For the Los Angeles production in 1990, Sellars made revisions to darken the opera in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests. The original production had not had an intermission between Acts 2 and 3; one was inserted, and Sellars authorized supertitles, which he had forbidden in Houston. Adams conducted the original cast in the French premiere, at the Maison de la Culture de Bobigny, Paris, on December 14, 1991. Thereafter, performances of the opera became relatively rare; writing in the New York Times in April 1996, Alex Ross speculated on why the work had, at that time, "dropped from sight".

The London premiere of the opera took place in 2000, at the London Coliseum, with Sellars producing and Paul Daniel conducting the English National Opera (ENO). A revival of this production was planned for the reopening of the renovated Coliseum in 2004, but delays in the refurbishment caused the revival to be postponed until 2006. The ENO productions helped to revive interest in the work, and served as the basis of the Metropolitan Opera's 2011 production. Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, had approached Adams in 2005 about staging his operas there. Gelb intended that Nixon in China be the first of such productions, but Adams chose Doctor Atomic to be the first Adams work to reach the Met. However, Gelb maintained his interest in staging Nixon in China, which received its Metropolitan premiere on February 2, 2011. This production became a Metropolitan Opera Live in HD transmission to movie theaters worldwide on February 12, 2011. The work received its BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall in London on September 5, 2012, although the second-act ballet was omitted.

While a number of productions have used variations on the original staging, the February 2011 production by the Canadian Opera Company used an abstract setting revived from a 2004 production by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Alluding to Nixon's "News" aria, the omnipresence of television news was dramatized by set designer Allen Moyer by keeping a group of televisions onstage throughout much of the action, often showing scenes from the actual visit. Instead of an airplane descending in Act 1, a number of televisions descended showing an airplane in flight.

Despite a recent proliferation of performances worldwide, the opera has not yet been shown in China.