1860s and prompted Johann Strauss II (1825–99) to imitative action. Strauss’ waltz-based shows were softer in tone than the sometimes abrasive satire of Offenbach, and they owed almost as much to the native Viennese tradition of Singspiel (another mix of speech and song, often heavily sentimental) as they did to the French import. But the formula was unequivocally successful, and it was soon followed by Franz Lehár (1870–1948) who took the Viennese version of the genre to the point of no return.
Meanwhile, the Offenbach phenomenon visited Britain in the 1870s and left its mark on the librettist/composer team of W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), whose Savoy Operas so insinuated themselves into English cultural life that its language and customs carry their imprint – not least the practice of queueing, which was introduced as a means of coping with the demand for G&S tickets.
Offenbach and G&S between them then spread to America where, reinterpreted via European exiles like the Hungarian Sigmund Romberg (1887–1951), they laid one of the foundations for the American Broadway musical. But that’s another story …
(1947–)
Nixon in China (1987)
The Death of Klinghoffer (1990)
I was looking at the Ceiling and then I saw the Sky (1995)
According to official statistics, John Adams is the most frequently performed of living American composers – his fame founded on an accessible style of writing known as Minimalism which involves the repetition of small groups of notes to a point where listeners are either mesmerised or driven crazy. An essentially West Coast American phenomenon, it was adopted by Adams in the early 1970s in reaction against an East Coast academic upbringing and meant that he was automatically associated with older Minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. But Adams has developed in a more eclectic way, providing himself with an escape route from what could otherwise be a restrictively dead-end musical language. Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer are striking examples of newsreel opera, their stories taken from real life and presented like televisual current affairs. Nixon deals with high-level politics; Klinghoffer (a treatment of the Achille Lauro hijack) with the personal consequences of political conflict. His most recent stage work, I was looking at the Ceiling and then I saw the Sky, is a dramatised song-sequence in something like the popular manner of the collaborations between Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill earlier this century. Looking critically at the lives of young Americans at the time of the last Los Angeles earthquake, it premiered with spray-paint set-designs by radical graffiti artists.
FORM: Opera in three acts; in English
COMPOSER: John Adams (1947–)
LIBRETTO: Alice Goodman
FIRST PERFORMANCE: Houston, 22 October 1987
Principal Characters
Richard Nixon, American president
Pat Nixon, his wife
Mao Tse-tung, Chinese statesman
Henry Kissinger, American statesman
Chiang Ch’ing, Mao’s wife
Chou En-lai, Chinese statesman
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: China; February 1972
ACT I On their arrival in Beijing, Nixon and his wife are greeted by Chou En-lai. Nixon feels that this visit is of great symbolic significance – as much as the first moon landing, in fact, and he also expresses his pleasure that their arrival coincides with peak television viewing time in America, thus ensuring him maximum publicity. Then the President, Henry Kissinger, Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai each offer their individual views on world issues, during which the contrasting ideologies and philosophies of East and West become evident, and the first act closes with a banquet.
ACT II Pat Nixon is taken to visit a commune and the Summer Palace and later joins the President, Mao, Chou En-lai and Mao’s wife, Chiang Ch’ing, to watch a performance of the contemporary ‘political ballet’, The Red Detachment of Women. This depicts a courageous group of women soldiers successfully battling against an unscrupulous landlord (played by Henry Kissinger). When the ballet ends, Chiang Ch’ing presents her account of the Cultural Revolution and how she sees her own place in history.
ACT III On the last night of the visit Nixon, Pat, Mao, Chiang Ch’ing and Chou En-lai are each seen in separate beds. Nixon and Mao reflect on past events in their lives and on their struggles to succeed. Nixon’s wartime memories centre on the acquisition of his own hamburger stand while Mao’s most vivid memories are the struggles of the Revolution. It is left to Chou En-lai to unite the past with the present by asking the question common to all political ideologies: ‘How much of what we did was good?’, which brings the opera to a close.
Music
Nixon in China is a mixture of exhilarating upbeat rhythms, pounding through the endless repetitions that make up a Minimalist score, and moments of reflective poignancy in which potentially cardboard characters really come to life. It isn’t easy to show recent historical figures with credibility on an opera stage, and the mere idea of Nixon and Mao singing to each other raises an assumption that the tone of the piece will be satirical. But no. Despite forays into the surreal, this is straight-laced all-American drama which if anything veers toward Romanticism – with appropriately luscious music. Even the synthesiser which Adams insinuates into the orchestral textures is given a romantic treatment.
Highlight
A brilliantly energised orchestral sequence called ‘The Chairman Dances’, which has entered the concert repertoire as a stand-alone piece.
Did You Know?
Recommended Recording
Sanford Sylvan, James Maddelena, Chorus and Orchestra of St Luke’s/Edo de Waart. Nonesuch 7559 79177-2. The only recording to date.