NiC Image by Joel Mann via Flickr
Checking recent aworks referrers, I see someone was trying to determine if Nixon in China has been performed in China.
I still assume not but if anyone knows of anything upcoming, I'm there...
Speaking of the opera, Wikipedia:
The libretto, by contrast, was written completely in rhymed, metered couplets, reminiscent of poetic and theatrical styles native to China.
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As mentioned in by Janos Gereben in the San Francisco Classical Voice, the Trinity Lyric Opera in Castro Valley, CA was going to present the Adams opera Nixon in China. However, he now reports via the OPERA-L listserv that the production may be cancelled:
Sources tell us that Boosey & Hawkes withdrew permission for the production, a highly unusual move at a time after Trinity's public announcement and most of the casting already decided. The publisher's action, which cited an error in issuing the license in the first place, makes one wonder if the composer might have denied permission.
And Gereben also points to this note by Georgia Rowe, formerly of the Contra Costa Times:
When David Gockley became music director of San Francisco Opera in 2006, one of his first promises was to present the long overdue company premiere of John Adams' "Nixon in China" at the War Memorial Opera House. It hasn't happened yet, although when I spoke to Gockley last week about the company's 2008-09 season, he said "Nixon" will be programmed in 2010.
I would of course prefer to see both productions of what is arguably Adams' greatest work...
Adams apologists who scoff at such scheming (wait, I'm an Adams apologist), musicologically-inclined contrarians who disagree with the "greatest" comment, and Republicans longing for the good ol' days of Richard Nixon are welcome to comment.
aworks: nixon in china. wikipedia: apology richard milhous nixon david gockley (hmm, no article yet).
I don't really have time to post these days but I found a link that deserves a quote longer than del.icio.us allows:
There was NO SINGING in Nixon in China. Seriously! There was chanting, there were what sounded like random notes thrown together, the kind of stuff that makes me think that the composer John Adams closed his eyes and started marking notes on blank sheet music with one hand tied behind his back. Then he gave that to the orchestra and to the singers and said, "Here's my Opera. Good luck, yo." It hurt to sit there. So how can it even be called an opera with no music to speak of?
Is this a recycled review circa Philip Glass' Einstein on the Beach? And if that really was John Adams' compositional process, I personally think it sounds better than one would expect. But more importantly,
I should probably ponder my current take on the music of the composer since it had never occurred to me that Adams' take on minimalism is inherently unmusical. In a perverse way, I find it refreshing to hear that attack on this opera.
Still, I happen to be listening to the works of Earle Brown this week so I can respect the idea that some compositions could be inherently unmusical (although even with Mr. Brown, that may not actually be true).
Of course, I also look forward to SF Opera's production of Einstein on the Beach in some yet to be announced season. Maybe we'll get to see people picketing outside the opera...
current political listening: live senate debate on cspan2 re: allowing a vote on the levin/reed amendment, as of at 11:16pm pdt. harkin actually gave a good speech presumably reflecting the views of iowans but the two senators that followed (republican and democratic, for the record) were grating. by the way, california senator barbara boxer is presiding madame president tonight and as an unexpected side comment, she acknowledged the fine civic (center) blogging of sfmike. ok, not really.
Via Messages from the Ether, scienceblogs discusses some contentious response to Scott Spiegelberg's recent "chacun à son goût" post. Suggestions for vocal music are made; some smart commenter suggests Adams' Nixon in China, which is an excellent introduction in many regards.
Fred's earlier post about Ned Rorem's songs has had me pondering my favorite American song composer. While maybe not suitable for classical novices (nor for rigid legacy listeners), Charles Ives is my current choice, although I like what I've heard lately of Virgil Thomson. The latter may be more suitable to popsters but compared to that world, his songs may be too tame.
Although I live at the intersection of popular and elite music, or more precisely, semi-popular and semi-elite, it took attending vocal recitals to really engage with this type of music.
free napster: nixon in china virgil thomson
Via Darcy James Argue and the Brooklyn Vegan, rock star David Bowie has discovered Adams' opera Nixon in China:
I've been listening to Arcade Fire and Secret Machines and this great opera from the '80s called 'Nixon In China'. It's just that. He gets off the plane. He has dinner with Mao.
Scrolling through the new classical downloads on eMusic, I see large numbers of China Record Corporation releases, which leads me to ask: has anything from John Adam's Nixon in China actually been performed in China? I'm assuming not...
Actually, I'm not the wife of Mao Tse-tung nor is Elin Carlson. But I'm streaming Carlson's full-length performance of the song from John Adam's Nixon in China right now, for free.
Rhapsody appears to have ditched their client software and the service now runs via a simple install of a Firefox browser plug-in. As far as I can tell, after free registering, you get to stream twenty-five tracks a month. Or, the same track twenty-five times; I'm listening for the fifth time to this one...
I cut my teeth upon the land
And when I walked my feet were bound
On rev-o-luuuu-UUUUU-tion.
Act II, Scene 2
Minnesota Opera is performing Adams' Nixon in China:
Director James Robinson says he appreciates the poignancy of the work and says he's enjoying directing an American opera.
"There's something very refreshing about working on a piece that's in your own language, about historical events that you remember," he says. "I felt like it was easy to get closer to the material somehow. I was very proud to be working on this piece and there was something very heart warming about it."
The production will also be performed in Cincinnati:
...The production, a new one by James Robinson introduced last year in St. Louis, makes extensive use of video – appropriate, said Plott, because the historic event "was one of the most dramatic moments in television journalism." Singing Nixon with be baritone Robert Orth (Owen Hart in "Dead Man Walking" in 2003), whose ability to "change looks and take on a character is just uncanny."
Had Nixon seen the opera, he might have been surprised at how sympathetically he and First Lady Pat Nixon are portrayed by John Adams' tuneful, shimmering score and Alice Goodman's allusive, poetic libretto. He might even have beamed with pride when, some years after the work's 1987 premiere in Houston, a critic called "Nixon in China" the "most famous American opera since 'Porgy and Bess.' "
I saw the opera 10 or so years ago in Los Angeles. I was taking notes in between acts and the woman beside me asked if I was a critic. My response:
No, but I'm taking notes in preparation for when blogs get invented in the next decade.
Although generally prescient on my part, I didn't take into account the fact I wouldn't be able to later find those notes...
Nick Guest comments on the use of colaratura soprano in the opera Nixon in China:
... However, it's a bit weird in my view to cast Madame Mao (Chiang Ch'ing) as a coloratura soprano. If I were the composer of an opera related to her, I would allot the role to a dramatic mezzo-soprano with coloratura capabilities, similar to the vocal requirements for the part of Princess Eboli in Verdi's <Don Carlo>.
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