Scottish Opera’s ‘Nixon in China’
“But what are they going to do without the big, giant plane?!” I frantically thought to myself a couple of minutes into Scottish Opera’s performance of John Adams’ opera ‘Nixon in China’ last night. Fortunately leaving it out was the right decision as, firstly, a mock-up of Airforce One would’ve looked stupid in the Theatre Royal and, secondly, with the events now almost fifty years behind us the approach is, appropriately, that of pulling out the remains of history from dusty archives. Gone is the documentary-esque, satellite news immediacy of Peter Sellers original production and in its place white-gloved hands carefully unpack and place under magnifying lenses decades-old photographs and documents for us to search for meaning, if any, that might remain. This event is just one of many that has come and gone.
For those who don’t know ‘Nixon in China’ it’s an opera depicting Tricky Dicky, his wife and Henry Kissinger’s trip to China in 1972. With its repetitive, propulsive score mixed with Cold War politics imagine a particularly aggressive Stephen Sondheim musical directed by Oliver Stone and you might get a rough idea of what to expect. Yet it’s not just a dry recreation of a historical moment but a sly interweaving of political hubris, Realpolitk manoeuvrings combined with personal lives and regrets in the face of oblivion and although it concerns events from the seventies this was very much a piece written in the Reagan Cold War era. So how would it translate today?
Scottish Opera nails pretty much all it brilliantly: we sense the large scale events at play; the capacity of atrocities on both sides; how world leaders can crumble from glory into tragedy and, ultimately, in the face of history become nothing more than ghostly voices trapped in a Chinese puzzle box left for future generations to make sense of.
The performances by the singers were all strong but especially by Hye-Youn Lee as Chiang Ch’ing who, unsurprisingly, steals the show with the catchy, audience favourite ‘I am The Wife of Mao Tse-tung’, hitting those high notes with gusto and power, even if she did have me thinking of ‘Team America: World Police’ upon her entrance. It wasn’t a surprise she got the biggest cheer at the end of the night.
John Adams’ music sounds still sounds as dynamic and urgent as ever, quite something considering how influential his music has been, especially in terms of film soundtracks, to the point where the term ‘Minimalism’ has become, essentially, meaningless having become so incorporated into our culture. Then again, apart from his early years, Adams was never really that much of a Minimalist anyway: when you have Ives, Copeland, jazz and the foxtrot all dancing together you couldn’t be further away from Minimalism if you tried. The orchestra did an excellent job of performing Adams’ tricky score, giving it plenty of oomph, especially from the all important saxophones, but also leaving enough space so as not to swamp everything. Although, personally, I still find no one’s quite been able to capture that essential shimmering quality of John Adams’ music quite like Edo De Waart, but that’s a conversation for a whole other time.
The evening wasn’t a total success for me though with a couple of contemporary jokes not quite working and pulling me out of the experience. Still, the audience laughed at them but, then again, it’s easy to make a classical music audience laugh — just throw a gag in, it doesn’t matter what it is, and they’ll burst out chuckling in an act of high-brow rebellion as they whisper to each other “A joke at the opera? How daring and funny!” It’s the incongruity that hits them as it doesn’t matter what the joke actually is; the fact there’s a joke IS the joke. They’re easily pleased and shocked. Why else do you think Michael Tilson Thomas introducing a symphony by sitting on the edge of the stage in the 1990’s was seen as the most shocking and daring thing in a concert hall since Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’?
Scottish Opera’s ‘Nixon in China’ was fantastic. It’s a clever and artistically satisfying update of a modern classic that still, and more than likely always will, has relevance. Adams’ music sounds fresh as it ever did and I left the Theatre Royal on a complete high.
My friend and I then went for a drink in the bar across the road; Chris De Burgh’s ‘Spanish Train’ was playing on the jukebox… the live version where he becomes even more hysterical and middle-of-the-road manic. Like Nixon I suffered a horrific and tragic fall back down to earth.
