Nixon in China

Duration : 3h10 with 1 interval

Language : English

Surtitle : French / English

Opening:

First part 65 minutes

Intermission 30 minutes

Second part 95 minutes

End

In 1972, Richard Nixon visited Mao Zedong in China, marking the beginning of a rapprochement between the United States and China against the backdrop of the Cold War. Fifteen years later, American composer John Adams chose this episode as the subject of his first opera, a score marked by its rhythmic pulse, shimmering colours and intense lyricism.

The work entered the Paris Opera repertoire in 2023 in a production directed by Valentina Carrasco, who eschews realism in favour of the poetry of allegory and the magical, not without a touch of humour.

The common thread running through her dramaturgy is the metaphor of “ping‑pong diplomacy” – a reference to the first diplomatic overture through sport between China and the United States in 1971 – which combines with the metaphor of illusion to deliver spectacular images and a keen reflection on history and the vanity of power.  

CHARACTERS

Richard Nixon: President of the United States
Mao Tse-tung: Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party
Pat Nixon: First Lady of the United States
Chiang Ch’ing: Mao’s wife
Henry Kissinger: US National Security Advisor
Chou En-lai: Chinese Prime Minister    

Synopsis

First part

Act 1
Scene one – The airport outside Peking
It is a cold, clear, dry morning: Monday, February 21, 1972. Contingents of army, navy and air force circle the field and sing “The Three Main Rules of Discipline” and “The Eight Points of Attention.” Premier Chou En-lai, accompanied by a small group of officials, strolls onto the runway just as The Spirit of ‘76 taxis into view. President Nixon disembarks. They shakehands and the President sings of his excitement and his fears.

Scene two – Chairman Mao’s study
An hour later he is meeting with Chairman Mao. Mao’s conversational armory contains philosophical apothegms, unexpected political observations and gnomic jokes, and everything he sings is amplified by his secretaries and the Premier. It is not easy for a Westerner to hold his own in such a dialogue.

Scene three – The Great Hall of the People
After the audience with Mao, everyone at the first evening’s banquet is euphoric. The President and Mrs. Nixon manage to exchange a few words before Premier Chou rises to make the first of the evening’s toasts, a tribute to patriotic fraternity. The President replies, toasting the Chinese people and the hope of peace. The toasts continue, with less formality, as the night goes on.

Second part

Act 2
Scene one – Mrs. Nixon views China
Snow has fallen during the night. In the morning Mrs. Nixon is ushered onstage by her party of guides and journalists. She explains a little of what it feels like for a woman like her to be First Lady and accepts a glass elephant from the workers at the Peking Glass Factory. She visits the Evergreen People’s Commune and the Summer Palace, where she pauses in the Gate of Longevity and Goodwill to sing, “This is prophetic!” Then, on to the Ming Tombs before sunset.

Scene two – An evening at the Peking
Opera In the evening, the Nixons attend a performance of The Red Detachment of Women, a revolutionary ballet devised by Mao’s wife, Chiang Ch’ing. The ballet entwines ideological rectitude with Hollywood-style emotion. The Nixons respond to the latter; they are drawn to the downtrodden peasant girl – in fact, they are drawn into the action on the side of simple virtue. This was not precisely what Chiang Ch’ing had in mind. She sings “I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung,” ending with full choral backing.

Act 3
The last evening in Peking. The pomp and public displays of the presidential visit are over, and the main players all return to the solitude of their bedrooms. The talk turns to memories of the past. Mao and his wife dance, and the Nixons recall the early days of their marriage during the Second World War, when he was stationed as a naval commander in the Pacific. Chou En-lai concludes the opera with the questionof whether anything they did was good.

Program and cast

Opera in three acts (1987)

Creative team

John Adams: Music(1947)

Alice Goodman: Libretto

Kent Nagano: Conductor

Valentina Carrasco: Director

Carles Berga: Set design

Peter van Praet: Set and lighting design

Silvia Aymonino: Costume design

Mark Grey: Sound creation

Alessandro Di Stefano: Chorus master

Cast

Thomas Hampson: Richard Nixon

Renée Fleming: Pat Nixon

John Matthew Myers: Mao Zedong

Caroline Wettergreen: Chiang Ch’ing

Joshua Bloom: Henry Kissinger

Xiaomeng Zhang: Zhou Enlai

Aebh Kelly: Nancy Tang, first secretary to Mao

Ning Lang: Second secretary to Mao

Emanuela Pascu: Third secretary to Mao

The Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus