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News! News! London Coliseum 06/07/2000 - 10, 12,14, 17, 19, 21 June 2000 John Adams Nixon in China David Kempster (Chou En-lai), Victoria Simmonds (Nancy T'ang), Ethna
Robinson (Second Secretary), Rebecca de Pont Davies (Third Secretary),
James Maddalena (Richard Nixon), Janis Kelly (Pat Nixon), Stephen Owen
(Henry Kissinger), Robert Brubaker (Mao Tse-tung), Judith Howarth (Chiang
Ch'ing)
Paul Daniel (conductor), Peter Sellars (director), Mark Morris (choreography)
ENO Chorus and Orchestra Now that Nixon is more or less exorcised and even the Reagan court for
which it was putatively written is the stuff of history, Nixon in
China ought to be easier to take as the Verdian tragedy or melodrama
which its creators -- composer John Adams, librettist Alice Goodman and
director Peter Sellars -- say they intended. Certainly, Adams' music,
setting heroic blank verse in English, has the some of the same dramatic
bravura as Verdi's; and Goodman's development of public and personal themes
in parallel, ending with the characters wearily reflecting on their lives
late at night, is an inch away from Boris Gudonov. Even the
dismissive characterization of Henry Kissinger a comic exaggeration of the
leader's sidekick type rather than a political judgement, though it is
pretty amusing as that.
But Alice Goodman's libretto, though often beautiful and well worth reading
in its own right, still seems far too knowing to be just pastiche or
equivalence. Kissinger's final exit is to the lavatory. More seriously,
there is much sympathetic use of documentary material which if not exactly
veristic cuts across the heroic treatment. Similarly, Sellars' new
production for the ENO is so visually self-contained with its tasteful
kitsch chinoiserie -- calligraphic trees in the background -- and equally
understatedly parodied Americans that it prompts a search for irony that
may or may not be there. Only Adams' music seems to guarantee the opera's
emotional integrity, conveying Nixon's bumptiousness, camraderie and
despair, Pat's sympathy and Chou's idealism and doubt as well as Mao's and
Chiang's obnoxious self-dramatization. Yet you find yourself wondering
about finding pleasure in the stuff of old news stories.
Paul Daniel and the ENO orchestra produced a very enjoyable performance of
the music. The singers were more of an ensemble than the personalities
involved would suggest, taking their bows together after a last act that is
essentially a diffuse sextet. James Maddalena as Nixon has done the role
many times before, of course, and doesn't need the prosthetic bags under
his eyes to live it, amiably but with a certain shiftiness. His diction was
also outstandingly good, whereas most of the other singers (with the
honorable exception of the trio of secretaries) lost some words to the
orchestra. Janis Kelly as Pat was a match for him, looking perfectly
fifties-done-up-in-the-seventies and getting the straightforward joy of
Pat's meeting with a pig and some schoolchildren, as well as her apple-pie
sincerity and decent toughness. Her intervention in the ballet wasn't at
all a surprise. Pat Nixon probably didn't have an Inverness accent, but it
didn't do any harm. Judith Howarth was suitably unpleasant and coloratura
as Chiang Ch'ing.
Paul Kempster as Chou didn't seem quite to have dug himself into the role.
In particularly, his first speech (at the dinner) wasn't quite engrossing,
though his final speech was wearily moving. But Maddalena's Nixon is a
difficult act to precede or follow, and Kempster probably has the vocal
substance and dramatic presence to make more of Chou. Stephen Owen was
buffoonish, but not always audible, as Henry Kissinger, and Robert Brubaker
was strangely nondescript as Mao.
The staging was visually strong if not exactly lavish -- Air Force One was
a shameless cardboard cutout -- and Mark Morris' dance, mainly in the
second act, was not quite camp, although the mayhem at the end of the act
("The people express their bitterness against counter-revolutionary
elements") was disturbing. Altogether, this was an evening of musical
entertainment and spectacle to which there was probably less than meets the
eye. Which you could also say of much of Verdi.
The ENO, by the way, seems to be seeking major support for individual
productions rather than institutional donors. Nixon in China is
supported by a group of individual donors,and sponsored (like the rest of
the summer season) by American Airlines. One of the individual donors, Bob
Borzello, offered to support an American opera, which coincided with
thoughts about doing Nixon anyway. The donors get what they want,
and the ENO can programme as it chooses without the need to give the
institutional donors what they expect. H.E. Elsom
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