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by John Adams, directed by James Robinson

Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto

February 5-26, 2011

Nixon in China has finally landed in Toronto.  John Adams’s 1987 opera, after playing all over the world, had its Canadian premiere as part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad.  Now a rivetting production by James Robinson has come to the Canadian Opera Company and demonstrates quite clearly why Adams’s work has been hailed as one of the most important 20th-century operas.

When staunch anti-communist Richard Nixon went to China for a five-day visit with Mao Tse-Tung, leader of the world’s most populous communist country, it was a world media event that signalled the possibility of a detente between nations of diametrically opposed philosophies.  The brilliance of Robinson’s production is to place that meeting within two contexts--one eastern, one western--that draw universal meaning from a particular event.  Before the opera begins we see rows of the terra-cotta army of Qin Shi Huang from 210BC in the midst the chorus and dancers who are performing tai chi.  In the foreground is an unchanging peasant woman who appears throughout the action and becomes its final focus.  Thus, Robinson sets Mao’s reign from 1943-76 against the vast expanse of Chinese history and culture and underscores the references in Alice Goodman’s libretto to mortality and impermanence.  At the same time his use of twelve boxy television sets playing historic clips of events enacted on stage emphasize history-become-media show creating images to be consumed along with TV dinners.  

Adams’s urgent and exciting minimalist music of repeated rhythms and melodic phrases reflects the unimpedible onrush of time in which human actions take place.  Robert Orth is an ideal Nixon, not just because of his remarkable resemblance, but because he captures the essence of the president as showman.  As Mao, Adrian Thompson masters the extremely high-lying music and creates the portrait of a ruthless man whose mind remains sharp though his body decays.  Maria Kanyova is a sympathetic Pat Nixon, a ordinary woman trying to cope in an international spotlight, while Marisol Montalvo could be more frightening as the doctrinaire Madame Mao.  Though the COC Orchestra under young conductor Pablo Heras-Casado produces gorgeous cascades of pulsating sound, the orchestra frequently drowns out the singers despite their use of mics.  This flaw aside, Nixon in China proves what an exhilarating experience modern opera can be.        

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2011-02-07.

Photo: Thomas Hammons as Kissinger, Robert Orth as Nixon, Chen-Ye Yuan as Chou En-Lai and Adrian Thompson as Mao. ©Michael Cooper.