Nixon laid the groundwork for his overture to China even before he became president, writing in Foreign Affairs a year before his election: "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation." Assisting him in this venture was his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, with whom the President worked closely, bypassing Cabinet officials. After he became president in 1969, Nixon saw advantages in improving relations with China and the Soviet Union he hoped that détente would put pressure on the North Vietnamese to end the Vietnam War, and he might be able to manipulate the two main communist powers to the benefit of the United States. Richard Nixon (right) meets Mao Zedong, February 1972ĭuring his rise to power, Richard Nixon became known as a leading anti-communist. Recent critical opinion has tended to recognize the work as a significant and lasting contribution to American opera.īackground Historical background
In 2011, the opera received its Metropolitan Opera debut, a production based on the original sets, and in the same year was given an abstract production in Toronto by the Canadian Opera Company. However, it has been presented on many occasions since, in both Europe and North America, and has been recorded at least five times. The combination of these elements varies frequently, to reflect changes in the onstage action.įollowing the 1987 premiere, the opera received mixed reviews some critics dismissed the work, predicting it would soon vanish.
With these ingredients, Adams mixes Stravinskian 20th-century neoclassicism, jazz references, and big band sounds reminiscent of Nixon's youth in the 1930s. Although sometimes described as minimalist, the score displays a variety of musical styles, embracing minimalism after the manner of Philip Glass alongside passages echoing 19th-century composers such as Wagner and Johann Strauss. To create the sounds he sought, Adams augmented the orchestra with a large saxophone section, additional percussion, and electronic synthesizer. Goodman's libretto was the result of considerable research into Nixon's visit, though she disregarded most sources published after the 1972 trip. When Sellars approached Adams with the idea for the opera in 1983, Adams was initially reluctant, but eventually decided that the work could be a study in how myths come to be, and accepted the project. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with choreography by Mark Morris. president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China. Adams's first opera, it was inspired by U.S. Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman.
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