Nixon in China Tonight

[Barrymagrec]

R3 are broadcasting John Adams`s Nixon in China tonight at 6.30

From the Bastille, Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Not to be missed.

 

[Barrymagrec]

It was splendid - catch it on iPlayer.

 

[alanbeeb]

How long has Thomas Hampson been going? I have recordings of him from the 1980s. it is a splendid opera, especially Act 3.

 

[Barrymagrec]

Over forty years and Renee Fleming is no spring chicken either. Some singers last nearly as long as conductors.

 

[John Phillips]

It was splendid - catch it on iPlayer.

It was splendid indeed. I have streamed the opera before but as separate Acts, not as a complete performance. I didn't find myself engaging with the broadcast so much in Act 1 but much more so in Acts 2 and 3 (as noted by @alanbeeb).

 

[alanbeeb]

It was splendid indeed. I have streamed the opera before but as separate Acts, not as a complete performance. I didn't find myself engaging with the broadcast so much in Act 1 but much more so in Acts 2 and 3 (as noted by @alanbeeb).

I was lucky enough to see it performed live, Scottish Opera ran it 4 years ago just before COVID struck.I think it might have been co-produced with Welsh National Opera as the resources needed must have been huge. (edit: turns it was co-produced with Teatro Madrid and Royal Danish Opera)

Act 3 featured a huge revolving cube onstage onto which were projected stark images of the horrors inflicted by the protagonists... Vietnam, Rolling Thunder, riots in USA, the Cultural Revolution, famine.... while Mao, Zhou En-Lai, Kissinger and Nixon sing loftily about what their place in history will be.

 

[Barrymagrec]

I think we first heard it on a Met broadcast many years ago. I thought the price for the original John Adams recording was a bit heavy and was pleased when the Marin Alsop recording became available, and it`s pretty good. a couple of years later John Adams and most of the original singers did it at the Proms and its was superb so I went out and sprang for his recording.

I enjoy his later works, Klinghoffer, Doctor Atomic and others but I think Nixon will always be his masterpiece.

Strange how many emminent composers have a success with their early works that is not bettered later, Britten, Tippett, Carlisle Floyd for instance.

 

[TheDecameron]

Over forty years and Renee Fleming is no spring chicken either. Some singers last nearly as long as conductors.

I heard it in Paris this spring. Her voice is not holding up well and I thought she had retired from the stage before this ( finishing with Rosenkavalier at the Met). I heard her give a recital in 2021 and her pitch was insecure in places but a performance of Dank sei dir, Herr with piano in the middle of the Covid misery was one I’ll take with me.

Hampson is still very impressive- he’s a natural actor and starting in an era where there weren’t many of them around. I thought Domingo was one but when you look back at his filmed work, he’s incredibly wooden ( Anja Harteros could be his sister in this regard). Today it’s utterly different, there are singers coming through who not only have the voices and the looks for the part but who can seriously act as well.