The Teatro Real in Madrid has once again taken the cat into the water with the suggestive and historic premiere in Spain of Nixon in China (1987) by John Adams. Between narcoleptic and excited, the audience justly applauded one of the most interesting and paradigmatic scores of the last quarter of the 20th century.
The first opera in the John Adams catalog (Worcester, 1947), with which it was also the first libretto for an opera signed by the poet Alice Goodman, has become a classic in the contemporary repertoire that deserved its Spanish premiere.
Intelligent, complex and cinematographic, the production signed by John Fulljames synthesizes with synesthetic appeal the sound blocks with which Adams builds the opera. The minimalist repetitive musical cells, which dissect the libretto as if they were sound frames from a documentary film, are superbly recreated theatrically thanks to a stage work that works like clockwork.
Among the blocks in the US government archive room, Fulljames recalls and aptly uses projections of actual photos and videos of the event: Nixon's visit to Mao Zedong in China in 1972. As slides flowing to Adams' hypnotic music, the story of the libretto is amplified and dissected with the curiosity of an entomologist.
The score delves into the characters as the first two acts progress, until reaching the third, a metaphysical reflection on man, power and his political significance that closes the two and a half hours of music like a lyrical dream.
A unique but production, in its resolution at the end of the second act, where the ballet The Red Detachment of Women is recreated in a somewhat confusing way, and the meta-story that the script outlines with skilful acrobatics is diluted.
Imposing and disciplined, the Madrid Symphony Orchestra in the pit with the analytical and iron baton of the debuting conductor at the Real Olivia Lee-Gundermann. His reading was methodical but without forgetting the poetics of an opera that blends into lyricism with nods to Wagner, Richard Strauss, Berg or Stravinsky contrasted with moments of jazz big band and those four surprising saxophones that are part of the exciting orchestration.
The cast was impeccable, with a Leigh Melrose (Nixon) who knew how to transcend with her smooth baritone voice the dilemma of the politician and the man, with colorful inflections worthy of a specialist.
Stealing scenes and with her own light, the Pat Nixon of the soprano Sarah Tynan –wife in real life of the baritone Melrose–, with a crystalline voice, brilliant in all ranges and with the sweet expression in the phrasing that the part demands.
Imposing treble and solvent theatrical recreation of tenor Alfred Kim as Mao Zedong, granting the ambivalence of a president-God with a human background full of contradictions. Charismatic and domineering with a tone worthy of a 20th-century Queen of the Night, soprano Audrey Luna as Madame Mao, the leader's fourth wife, who went down in history as a harpy despot of the Chinese cultural revolution. Jacques Imbrailo played Mao's prime minister, Zhou Enlai, who transforms himself into the human and rational part of the Chinese sovereign with an expressive song of psychological depth.
The recreation of Henry Kissinger by the Galician baritone Borja Quiza is priceless. His comic characterization culminated in his great aria choreographed like a music-hall, a fine vocal caricature that exposes politics and his use of the mass media, a key theme.
Great work by the Intermezzo choir for a writing that makes them a significant character as the voice of the Chinese people, as well as John Ross's suggestive choreography for the dancers.
Success for the Teatro Real, which premieres an opera less than 36 years old, a score that has not lost its freshness, that deserves to be experienced live and that is a historical reflection with multiple readings since the 21st century.
