For its entry into the Paris Opera repertoire, this work has been entrusted to the director Valentina Carrasco, who underlines the importance and the mediating power of Chinese national sport in history.
Nixon in China, by the American composer John Adams, is a key 20th-century work entering the Paris Opera's repertoire. The libretto, a political drama with humanist overtones, evokes Nixon's historic visit to meet Mao in 1972. Drawing on scholarly as well as repetitive music and American folklore, John Adams' score alternates between irony, melancholy and lyricism. Gustavo Dudamel conducts a cast led by Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming, in Valentina Carrasco's production evoking "ping pong diplomacy".
Nixon in China
Opera in three acts (1987)
Music:
John Adams - (1947)
Libretto:
Alice Goodman
Conductor:
Gustavo Dudamel
Chorus master:
Ching-Lien Wu
Director:
Valentina Carrasco
Set design:
Carles Berga
Peter Van Praet
Costume design:
Silvia Aymonino
Lighting design:
Peter Van Praet
Zhou Enlai:
Xiaomeng Zhang
Richard Nixon:
Thomas Hampson
Henry Kissinger:
Joshua Bloom
Nancy Tang:
Yajie Zhang
Mao Zedong:
John Matthew Myers
Pat Nixon:
Renée Fleming
Chiang Ch’ing:
Kathleen Kim