John Adams's groundbreaking 1987 opera, Nixon in China, receives its Metropolitan Opera premiere tomorrow night, with the composer making his Met debut on the podium and Peter Sellars making his Met directorial debut; the Met is hosting a conversation with Adams and Sellars tonight. The Nonesuch reissue of the Grammy-winning original cast recording, in a newly redesigned and specially-priced three-CD set, is out today. "Adams’s Nixon is finally about to get the respect it deserves," says Newsweek. "After all these years, this Nixon’s return is most welcome."
John Adams's groundbreaking 1987 opera, Nixon in China, receives its premiere at New York's Metropolitan Opera tomorrow night, with the composer making his Met debut on the podium and Peter Sellars making his Met directorial debut. To coincide with this momentous occasion, Nonesuch Records has reissued the Grammy-winning original cast recording in a newly redesigned and specially-priced three-CD set, out today, featuring a 68-page booklet with the complete libretto and new notes by Adams and Sellars, along with the original liner notes by librettist Alice Goodman and by the late Michael Steinberg, which the Los Angeles Times described as "a revelation." You can pick up a copy now in the Nonesuch Store and receive high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the album at checkout.
The Met will host a conversation about its Nixon in China production with Adams, Sellars, and members of the cast, led by Met General Manager Peter Gelb, tonight, at the Metropolitan Opera House. For tickets to this and to performances of Nixon in China, visit metopera.org.
In addition to the live performances of Nixon in China taking place at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, the production will be transmitted live in high-definition to movie theaters around the world on Saturday, February 12, at 1 PM ET, as part of the Met's Live in HD series. Encore screenings will take place on Wednesday, March 12, at 6:30 PM, in the United States, and Saturday, March 12, at 1:30 PM ET, in Canada. For more information, visit metopera.org.
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Nixon in China is featured in this week's Newsweek. "Adams’s Nixon is finally about to get the respect it deserves," writes Newsweek's Seth Colter Walls of the Met production and related events. Its "blend of critical esteem and public accessibility would have made Nixon in China the most important classical-music event of any season." This season in particular, though, the opera is particularly welcome: given recent calls to move beyond partisanship in politics, the opera, through its depiction of Nixon's trip to China in a nonpartisan light, "discovers the hidden profundities that typically elude real-life politicians," argues Coulter Walls.
"After all these years," he concludes, "this Nixon’s return is most welcome."
Read the article at newsweek.com.
And in an expanded version of the article on Newsweek partner the Daily Beast, Colter Walls speaks further with Adams about the complexities of depicting a character at once as complex and so often caricatured as Nixon. You can read that at thedailybeast.com.
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The Los Angeles Times has taken a look at director Peter Sellars' work and his contribution to Nixon in China as he prepares to make his Met directorial debut tomorrow night. You can read that article at latimes.com.
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