‘Nixon in China’, when opera makes history | Culture

Yeah nixons in china were it a movie, it could include at the end the typical text seasoned with a soundtrack that makes a quick balance of how the situation is years later. Maybe something like this: “The honeymoon between China and the United States did not lead to a lasting marriage. Half a century later, the two countries look at each other with suspicion and are fighting for world leadership. But it is not a film, it is an opera by John Adams whose premiere in Spain can be seen at the Teatro Real in Madrid from April 17 to May 2.

Besides some movies nixons in china It could also be a journalistic chronicle that narrates one of the most important diplomatic events of the late 20th century. It begins with the arrival of the American plane and the welcome of Prime Minister Chu En-lai to the President of the United States. Continue, an hour later, with the meeting between Nixon and Mao Zedong and with the visit, the next day, of Mrs. Nixon to factories, schools and farms. “The most exciting thing is that they are real events,” summarizes the set designer John Fulljames on video, since he has not been able to appear at the presentation of the play this Wednesday at the theater. And he continues: “We are 50 years later, at a time when these events are going down in history, they are on their way to becoming something mythical. This process is key to understanding why John Adams wanted to create this work and why it is relevant to perform it now.”

The set designer says that he was impressed by the large amount of material on the historic meeting. He recorded, photos and reports that helped them to recreate the costumes, wigs and makeup of the protagonists, but also to deepen them. With the set design, he intends to represent an archive so that the viewer feels that he is unearthing part of the story himself. “We try to find the bridge between historical facts. Between the way in which the public of that time could feel those events that were recent and the way in which we appreciate this event that already belongs to a more distant history. We imagine the public dusting the boxes, opening them and seeing what’s in them,” adds costume designer Dick Bird.

This opera is also a milestone from a musical point of view. “It is innovative, special and unique. But much of its base is also anchored in the past. It has influences from jazz, neoclassicism, post-romanticism, echoes of Strauss or Stravinski. I would dare to say that it goes even further: with baroque influences. It is an opera that looks to the past, but also to the present and the future”, sums up Kornilios Michailidis, one of the two musical directors. It was planned that the director would be Ivor Bolton, but finally he couldn’t for personal reasons.

The Korean Olivia Lee-Gundermann completes the musical direction, also contributing her vision as an Asian to a work that fuses the Western and Eastern worlds. “The main difference between the two cultures is that in Asia there are no superhero movies because the most important thing, according to our mentality, is the sense of community. is nixons in china each singer is a hero on stage, but the orchestra must play in unison, otherwise everything breaks”.

In addition, Joan Matabosch, artistic director of the Teatro Real, points out that the work hides a great sense of humor: “There are many tremendously ironic winks. One of them is Mao’s three secretaries who are repeating in a very serious tone what the party leader says, but sometimes Mao loses his temper, he starts saying things that are not in the script and at a given moment the secretaries anticipate what he is going to say so that he gets back on the rails that the president of China is supposed to be on ”. And he concluded: “John Adams loves to say that in his house Benny Goodman was not distinguished from Mozart and in some way that explains very well what he is.” Nixons in China: a work capable of integrating the great European musical tradition with everything that is the world of jazz… Very different music that here forms part of the same language”.