Nixon in China, and other NYCings
This past weekend there was travellage down to NYC for friend visitings and opera viewings. And lots of restaurantings, as well. Mostly it was for the opera viewing, but the rest was certainly good times.
So the opera: Nixon in China was... let's say just a bit cracky.
Way more Mao-sex than I would have expected for uh. Well, anything. Also really weird was realizing at the first intermission that I’d actually gotten one of the songs in my head. How do you even do that with minimalist opera? Oddly for a few days afterward, this continued to happen with multiple different songs. I didn't think I'd remembered any of them, then someone would say something and it'd trigger off in my head "the people -- are -- the heroes -- now! Behemoth -- moves -- the peasant's plow!" or some such.
Also, most of the music was all, “ah, yes, this sounds like every other John Adams work I’ve ever heard mashed together and with really odd, semi-pedestrian lyrics,” up until we got to the ballet, where suddenly it was all, “and now we’ll throw in some pentatonic” and I was going “is this stereotyping, or is the actual ballet music like this??” Now I have to hunt down the original ballet - Red Detachment of Women. (The whole ballet-in-the-opera thing in Act 2 was really interesting and entertaining, but all of us were so vicariously embarrassed for Pat Nixon that it was mixed with a lot of cringing.) We did pull up some of it and watch a couple minute clip on YouTube the next day, but I need to take a closer look at more of it.
Act 1 might almost have been my favourite. It felt a little slow to start, but getting into the groove of the sort of humour and attitude of this opera was really interesting. There were multiple bits where the whole audience was laughing, and I'm pretty sure that was intentional and appropriate every time it happened. Not something I expect from an opera. I also really enjoyed the giant two dimensional airplane descending directly down onto the stage in total "this is not remotely realistic" fashion. Act 1 had the most sort of outright followable philosophical discussion, and I think most of the thought-provoking that happened for me was in this act. Act 3 maybe should have had that title, but I was too busy going ?!?! for that to happen.
It was really nifty to see the opera with the composer conducting, but sadly we were so far up that I didn't get much of a view of what John Adams was doing. I mean, certainly it came off well, but I was hard-pressed to see anything particular going on. It is, of course, always really nice to listen to a super professional orchestra and hear things As Intended complete with awesomely on-the-ball brass who are balanced well, tuned well, and are at that level of nuance rather than just "we hit those notes all right!" and well-synched-up woodwinds who when they have high to low runs seamlessly blend from flute/picc on top into the clarinet run, then into bassoon. I was also really amused that they had precisely one percussionist for this work, and also that the choices of percussion used were SO JOHN ADAMS. It was all, "ah, wood block again. In the same rhythm I've heard used in two other Adams works. 'Kay."
I mean, it was balanced and all, and I enjoyed it, but a lot of my reaction to the opera was just, "yup, that's some John Adams from the 1980s all right."
Also, I don't know that Adams is particularly good at using solo voice well. A lot of the most technically showy/difficult vocal work was actually difficult to hear well because it was in the middle of really thickly-textured songs where a giant ensemble is playing and singing. The exception to this was some of Madam Mao's stuff, and she was scary awesome, with her crazyarse octave jumping sopranoness. I also cracked the hell up at her line of “who chose this music, anyhow?” pointedly spoken to John Adams as he conducted.
A lot of what I was getting out of it was just auditory, and then whatever I could manage to piece together of plot based on just "oh, I think that man-in-a-suit is Nixon... he's moving to talk to... uh... is that other man-in-a-suit Chou En-Lai?" Not all of it was like this, but large group scenes (particularly the non-ballet bits of Act 2 were definitely problematic this way.)
Comments afterward when talking were on how this opera was *not* designed to be in a large venue, and specifically was kind of targeted as a "pah! Who needs the Met?" kind of staging. Uh. It suffered from being in the nosebleed seats. If there were any expressions on the main players' faces, I definitely caught none of that. I was having a hell of a time from as far back as we ended up sitting figuring out in certain parts who was even singing. I kept joking that they should have given all the male leads extremely bold ties of different colours so it’d be easier to track them.
Moving on from Act 2 of incoherence and ballet, WTF, Act 3??? At some point, Kissenger is like, “hey, where’s the bathroom?” and then I think it’s Chou En-Lai who points up at the door that’s in a giant painting of Mao’s head. Kissenger heads off to the bathroom, then is never seen again. Well, until he ends up on a gurney in the background. But we’re not clear on why he’s dead! Or if he’s dead!
Act 3 vis a vis who did or did not die is completely confusing. Chou En-Lai honestly is very clearly dead while Nixon is still there, which historically makes no sense, but then before the end of the act he gets up again and exposits some more. (Oh noes, our premier is now a zombie! This is what you get for talking with America! :P) A coworker suggested that there was some temporal kludgeyness going on there and that Nixon and his wife were kind of just running along in slow time after the visit while Mao and Chou En-Lai were sort of accelerating through time. And then they jump back at the end? I don't know.
Honestly, Act 3 seems like someone just decided, “heeeey, let’s make this *extra* symbolic” and then they had some sort of fever-induced dream and just dictated that. As a result, most of my reaction to it was, “....???”
Anyhow. I really enjoyed it, though definitely at times in a what just happened?? kind of way. I think I might have gotten a bit more out of it if I were more familiar with the actual historical events, though. One of our party is a bit of a political history type junkie and she was explaining some extra references for us during intermissions. Without that, most of what I would have gotten out of the opera is “goddamn, Americans are not tactful, have no history, and have no philosophical depth.” Also, “Madam Mao is scary.” A good lesson to learn? :P
So the opera: Nixon in China was... let's say just a bit cracky.
Way more Mao-sex than I would have expected for uh. Well, anything. Also really weird was realizing at the first intermission that I’d actually gotten one of the songs in my head. How do you even do that with minimalist opera? Oddly for a few days afterward, this continued to happen with multiple different songs. I didn't think I'd remembered any of them, then someone would say something and it'd trigger off in my head "the people -- are -- the heroes -- now! Behemoth -- moves -- the peasant's plow!" or some such.
Also, most of the music was all, “ah, yes, this sounds like every other John Adams work I’ve ever heard mashed together and with really odd, semi-pedestrian lyrics,” up until we got to the ballet, where suddenly it was all, “and now we’ll throw in some pentatonic” and I was going “is this stereotyping, or is the actual ballet music like this??” Now I have to hunt down the original ballet - Red Detachment of Women. (The whole ballet-in-the-opera thing in Act 2 was really interesting and entertaining, but all of us were so vicariously embarrassed for Pat Nixon that it was mixed with a lot of cringing.) We did pull up some of it and watch a couple minute clip on YouTube the next day, but I need to take a closer look at more of it.
Act 1 might almost have been my favourite. It felt a little slow to start, but getting into the groove of the sort of humour and attitude of this opera was really interesting. There were multiple bits where the whole audience was laughing, and I'm pretty sure that was intentional and appropriate every time it happened. Not something I expect from an opera. I also really enjoyed the giant two dimensional airplane descending directly down onto the stage in total "this is not remotely realistic" fashion. Act 1 had the most sort of outright followable philosophical discussion, and I think most of the thought-provoking that happened for me was in this act. Act 3 maybe should have had that title, but I was too busy going ?!?! for that to happen.
It was really nifty to see the opera with the composer conducting, but sadly we were so far up that I didn't get much of a view of what John Adams was doing. I mean, certainly it came off well, but I was hard-pressed to see anything particular going on. It is, of course, always really nice to listen to a super professional orchestra and hear things As Intended complete with awesomely on-the-ball brass who are balanced well, tuned well, and are at that level of nuance rather than just "we hit those notes all right!" and well-synched-up woodwinds who when they have high to low runs seamlessly blend from flute/picc on top into the clarinet run, then into bassoon. I was also really amused that they had precisely one percussionist for this work, and also that the choices of percussion used were SO JOHN ADAMS. It was all, "ah, wood block again. In the same rhythm I've heard used in two other Adams works. 'Kay."
I mean, it was balanced and all, and I enjoyed it, but a lot of my reaction to the opera was just, "yup, that's some John Adams from the 1980s all right."
Also, I don't know that Adams is particularly good at using solo voice well. A lot of the most technically showy/difficult vocal work was actually difficult to hear well because it was in the middle of really thickly-textured songs where a giant ensemble is playing and singing. The exception to this was some of Madam Mao's stuff, and she was scary awesome, with her crazyarse octave jumping sopranoness. I also cracked the hell up at her line of “who chose this music, anyhow?” pointedly spoken to John Adams as he conducted.
A lot of what I was getting out of it was just auditory, and then whatever I could manage to piece together of plot based on just "oh, I think that man-in-a-suit is Nixon... he's moving to talk to... uh... is that other man-in-a-suit Chou En-Lai?" Not all of it was like this, but large group scenes (particularly the non-ballet bits of Act 2 were definitely problematic this way.)
Comments afterward when talking were on how this opera was *not* designed to be in a large venue, and specifically was kind of targeted as a "pah! Who needs the Met?" kind of staging. Uh. It suffered from being in the nosebleed seats. If there were any expressions on the main players' faces, I definitely caught none of that. I was having a hell of a time from as far back as we ended up sitting figuring out in certain parts who was even singing. I kept joking that they should have given all the male leads extremely bold ties of different colours so it’d be easier to track them.
Moving on from Act 2 of incoherence and ballet, WTF, Act 3??? At some point, Kissenger is like, “hey, where’s the bathroom?” and then I think it’s Chou En-Lai who points up at the door that’s in a giant painting of Mao’s head. Kissenger heads off to the bathroom, then is never seen again. Well, until he ends up on a gurney in the background. But we’re not clear on why he’s dead! Or if he’s dead!
Act 3 vis a vis who did or did not die is completely confusing. Chou En-Lai honestly is very clearly dead while Nixon is still there, which historically makes no sense, but then before the end of the act he gets up again and exposits some more. (Oh noes, our premier is now a zombie! This is what you get for talking with America! :P) A coworker suggested that there was some temporal kludgeyness going on there and that Nixon and his wife were kind of just running along in slow time after the visit while Mao and Chou En-Lai were sort of accelerating through time. And then they jump back at the end? I don't know.
Honestly, Act 3 seems like someone just decided, “heeeey, let’s make this *extra* symbolic” and then they had some sort of fever-induced dream and just dictated that. As a result, most of my reaction to it was, “....???”
Anyhow. I really enjoyed it, though definitely at times in a what just happened?? kind of way. I think I might have gotten a bit more out of it if I were more familiar with the actual historical events, though. One of our party is a bit of a political history type junkie and she was explaining some extra references for us during intermissions. Without that, most of what I would have gotten out of the opera is “goddamn, Americans are not tactful, have no history, and have no philosophical depth.” Also, “Madam Mao is scary.” A good lesson to learn? :P