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The Nixon Tapes

This concert hall performance of several scenes from Nixon in China left one wanting to see a full production of the opera itself.
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The program started with works by two contemporary music giants – Jonny Greenwood (from Radiohead) and Bryce Dessner (The National). It was good to see the Opera Orchestra out of the pit and on the stage of the Concert Hall for the Greenwood composition, Popcorn Superhet Receiver. The expanded string section revealed itself to be a convincing ensemble, freed from playing second fiddle to the human voice. Of particular interest was an unusually rhythmic and percussive passage of pizzicato.

For Dessner’s composition, St Carolyn by the Sea, the strings were joined by wind, brass and percussion. The piece employed the full register of orchestral colour to great effect even if at times overwhelming the melodic line of the orphaned electric guitars wafting through the performance – an attempt to harmonise the “amplified” sound of the guitars with the very rich acoustic instrumentation of the orchestra.

The eponymous Nixon Tapes was a concert hall performance of several scenes from Nixon in China, a major three-act opera by Minimalist composer John Adam (written in 1987) based on an historic real world event – Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, a diplomatic tour de force which ended 25 years of separation between the US and China and shifted the balance of power in the Cold War.

The Concert Hall performance of The Nixon Tapes (Version 1) was a cut-down iteration of the original without the opera stage, yet with its own rewards for the audience. Both score and libretto remain an inspiring contribution to the repertoire of modern opera. Even without the dramatic space of an opera stage the concordance of orchestral score, aria and libretto, the use of repetition and echo, between libretto, melodic line and harmonic pattern are particularly striking.

The Opera Chorus was impressive, even providing thrilling onomatopoeic sound effects throughout, echoing and supporting the soloists, and providing the backstory to the depicted event. 

Luke Gabbedy’s Richard Nixon was effective; perhaps the voice of Christopher Tonkin (Chou En-lai ) was not quite big enough to compete with the volume of the onstage orchestra. David Parkin’s Henry Kissinger adds extra context to the excerpts with a few brief lines. 

Soprano Jane Ede’s incomparable performance channelling Pat Nixon was one of the highlights of the performance, matched only by Eva Kong’s electrifying Chiang Ch’ing (Madame Mao Tse-tung), who swept onto the stage in a flame of red lace, Little Red Book in hand, to deliver the final aria.

Adam’s original opera reflects the optimism and significance of Nixon’s historic visit, and almost ennobles the now-disgraced Nixon. A throwaway line in the poetically charged libretto resonates in an unexpected way. In an intimate exchange with Pat, who is concerned that the endless toasting about to come at the State banquet may go to her head, Nixon comments ‘It may, and I might be a Russian spy’. But the joke ends there. It is hard to believe that Donald Trump could ever trump the importance of Nixon’s visit to China.

The deployment of orchestra, chorus and the singers, with the benefit of the full acoustic dimensions of the concert hall, proved to be a great way to introduce a major work that hadn’t been seen in Sydney previously, and demonstrated a way for Opera Australia to present opera without the major costs involved in a full theatrical production. But it was also disappointing, because the concert hall  ‘trailer’ was wonderful and left you wanting to see the full production of the opera itself. It is a work that demands to be staged in full, whether in the Concert Hall or on the stage of the Joan Sutherland Theatre.

The Nixon Tapes, Sydney Opera House, Monday 5 June 2017, VIVID Live.
Opera Australia Orchestra and Opera Australia Chorus, soloists.

 

Miranda Fair
About the Author
Miranda Fair is a Sydney-based visual artist with a strong interest in the performing arts.