From the mezzanine at 2:15 p.m. Sunday, just before it started.

I loved the Eugene Opera’s daring, amusing, smart, challenging production of Nixon in China. If I could see it every day for a week, I would.

Sadly for me, that tremendous effort – the rehearsing, the choral practice, the designs, the costumes, the tech rehearsals – ended when the curtain fell at 5:37 on Sunday afternoon, just about three hours after it all began. This is always the case with the Eugene Opera, which produces usually two shows a year (though I’d rank the semi-staged Il Trovatore, the extra show of 2009, up there with the best things I’ve seen in Eugene) with two or three performances of each show. I’ll save for another day my encomiums to the effort, because effort is not all – performance is all, in this case, at least for the audience members who pay $40 to $90 to see the opera. And in this case, the performances were well worth the money.

Once, when I was attending a fabulous arts journalism fellowship right at the beginning of the hemorrhaging of arts journalists from newspapers (we were the canaries in the coal mine; by the time the economy crashed in September of 2008 and then ad revenues crashed along with it, we were mostly long-gone, or a deeply endangered breed), I got schooled by Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times for reviewing a Handel opera as if it were theatre instead of opera. After Act I of Nixon in China, the guys sitting behind me said, “It’s more like a play than an opera, isn’t it?” (They didn’t say that after Act III, though, so I don’t know if they were still thinking it.)

Therefore, I know it’s possible that one of the reasons I liked this staging, and the Met’s 2011 HD broadcast staging, of Nixon in China is that the entire thing is more like theatre. It would be a postmodern-ly absurdist play, a play that wings off into poetry – Pat Nixon’s “This is prophetic” aria, more like an incantation, in Act II makes for a sweet, naïve, absurd, lyrically lovely late 20th-century reworking of “Howl” and it reminds me of Wallace Stevens’ ”Emperor of Ice Cream” – and a fully sung play. As music director Andrew Bisantz wrote in the program, “Nixon and his operatic entourage were not meant to be viewed as characters in a music-hall parody; rather, they were to be seen as historical and dramatic archetypes, as in the historical plays of Shakespeare and the operatic representations of ancient history by G.F. Handel.”

Also, I’m a believer in preparing for operas. The music isn’t usually super-duper complex in operas, but a. there’s a lot of it and b. I get very sleepy with music I don’t know well (I mean symphonic music & for that matter, chamber music – not pop/rock/alt so much, because, lyrics and short songs).

And it’s not as if Nixon in China has the advantage of its arias accompanying dramatic scenes in movies – because it’s newer (1987) and in English (that is, not mysterious), it’s not going to accompany a battle scene, or a romantic scene, the way many Italian opera arias do. OK, and it’s also because many people aren’t used to John Adams’ music. I overheard people saying “It was atonal!” or “It had no shape!” during/after the opera – I don’t agree with either analysis, but I understand that if they’re expecting Carmen, that’s not happening. I find Adams’ music plenty tonal – but that’s a whole big discussion I’m not musically qualified enough to have … others welcome to contribute here. If I think of tonality as the music having some central theme, then I can say I did enjoy hearing a theme from the first chorus repeat several times during the opera, the first time my ear has picked that out, probably because it was live and also Bisantz may have emphasized it a bit.

Anyway, I was prepared, particularly for the opening and for “I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung,” which is an aria of surpassing weird/wonderfulness. That preparedness helps. Also, I’m patient with performances. I’ve only ever walked out on one performance in my life, a god-awful theatrical production that made me furious with its stupidity, so I guess I’m not one to leave after the first act of an opera (apparently, many people did – which is a shame, as the second act is fabulous).

Musical interlude: I’m listening to this version of “This is prophetic” and smiling as I write this – “Let Gypsy Rose kick off her party shoes … let businessmen speculate further … let the expression on the Statue of Liberty change just a little; let her see what lies inland.” Oh, Pat Nixon! The things you miss in this scene! Such brilliant writing by poet Alice Goodman.

But back to the Eugene Opera’s version, which took a united effort from a rather stunning number of people in and out of Eugene. First of all, the scrim. The gorgeously printed, monumental scrim – I assume designed by scenery designer Peter Beudert – and the light on Nixon (Lee Gregory, whom we’ve seen in Don Giovanni as Leporello and The Marriage of Figaro as Figaro) as he gets changed/dressed in the plane. Speaking of that plane, I’m not sure what happened – I was under the impression there was a plane, but that was from a conversation with Bisantz and opera executive director Mark Beudert before Carmen in December, so anything could have occurred. In this case, it was weird after seeing the Met’s version not to have a plane on stage, but that moment of disappointment went away quickly as Gregory distracted the audience with his smile and waving.

… and I just realized that what I want to do is relive the entire opera as I write this. Not useful, Suzi. FYI, if you want to see the full Houston Opera version from 1987, it’s available on YouTube – in 17 parts – starting here:

So some of my favorite things about this performance and the libretto/score in general:

Mark Beudert has a lovely voice! And he was good as Mao. Not even close to frail, the way the usual Mao is played. But I want Mark to sing more and exec less. Well, that’s not true; I think he (with others) has done a superhuman job making the Eugene Opera a going concern again.
Ben Goodman of the Eugene Ballet choreographed the piece and danced in the Revolutionary Ballet scene. I am so pleased to see Ben in yet another Eugene performing arts group. Also, he whipped that Eugene Opera chorus into doing tai chi and singing – that was amazing (and no, he didn’t actually use a whip … in the tai chi scene, anyway).
The second act, wow. I want to see that second act again and again. Kelly Kaduce, whom we (and the Portland Opera) have enjoyed onstage several times before, didn’t have a Pat Nixon-like wig the way all of the other Pats I’ve seen (on the screen) have, but she made Pat seem like a party-loving, not-too-bright, sweet – and put-upon – woman, and of course, as usual, I enjoyed her voice.
In the Pat-on-tour scene, she charmed the audience with her ability to interact with the bicyclists, the children … and the pigs (I’m not kidding; that was fun, and as Mark Beudert said in his curtain speech, this was the first time the Eugene Opera had to thank Sweet Briar Farms “for livestock management”). And the juxtaposition of Pat’s wide-eyed attempts to connect to the workers with what they sing when the big elephant’s on the stage … wow. Killer libretto, Alice Goodman.

Then Laura Wayte made Chiang Ch’ing/Madame Mao such an impatient, annoyed, strong, intense personality in the ballet scene, not to mention her big “I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung” moment.
Why and how is this such a memorable/stunning/holyshitdidthatjusthappen aria? I don’t entirely know, but damn. The 2011 Met version:

The third act was a bit odd. It’s a different staging – as is the entire Eugene production, by (totally cute, not that I’m a strong judge of the men) stage director Sam Helfrich – than the Met’s staging, and I was at first waiting for the beds. Where were the beds? I mean, Peter Sellars talked about the beds being like coffins! I wanted the beds – nNot Kissinger (a befuddledly excellent Michael Gallup), Chou En-lai (Christopher Burchett, whom we’ve seen sing Masetto in Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro), Pat, Dick, Mao and Chiang Ch’ing in a post-party alcoholic funk at separate tables, slumped and out of it and lonely. Which was what we got. WHERE ARE THE COFFINS, SAM? was the thought bubble above my head.
Then I snapped out of it. I liked this staging. Part of the excellence of the third act (though not all of my companions felt this way or enjoyed that bleakness, trailing off into despair/nothingness) comes from the distracted, isolated, separate, weird, overlapping parts of the libretto. Who’s talking? To whom? Why? Why are they retelling stories they’ve told over and over?

Well, exactly.

I thought the orchestra performed well with this score. I know it’s a monster. When I said back there that usually operas don’t have super-duper complex music, I didn’t mean this opera. At least that’s the impression I got from some of the musicians, and from Bisantz when I briefly spoke to him at rehearsal. It wasn’t perfect, but they did well.
Some of the costumes (the secretaries, Pat, Dick, Henry, Mao) were gorgeous. Sometimes the chorus looked like it had simply brought clothes from home, but other times, it was a little more identical. I would have preferred a more similar look for all chorus members, all of the time.
Eugene Ballet! I think those dancers were all company members of yours? Well done. Nice collaboration (or just sharing?).
As some of you know, the opera just … ends. It’s not triumphal. It’s not big. It trails off. I loved that a lot … and then it took way too long to get the whole cast up there for curtain calls. Hey, if you’re not there in time, too bad. You don’t get to bow. (Unless you’re a principal, of course, in which case … yeah.)
I know some people didn’t like John Adams’ music. In addition, I heard that on Friday night, there was a lot of backstage noise – as in, things crashing around. I say that means not enough rehearsal time (as they are all too aware – and as I suspected, which was why I bought tickets for Sunday). I know that the chorus, though it did its best, occasionally looked sloppy and/or slapdash, even on Sunday. I know that a few scenes were awkwardly staged, at least with the chorus. (I also know that the people behind me and to the right needed to shut the hell up – “Honey, look! THAT’S PAT NIXON!” Yes. Thank you. Arglesmack.)

All of that is fair criticism. But overall, this was a moonshot for the Eugene Opera. Yes, like Nixon, I have to think of the Apollo astronauts .. ahem. Though it may not be reflected in ticket sales, the opera made it to the moon and back. I hope the board sucks it up, finds more sponsors and keeps on going because from this audience member’s point of view, it was well worth the effort.

By Marilyn Farwell

With its production of John Adams’ “Nixon in China,” Eugene Opera took a great leap forward. By attempting this challenging modern opera, the company took a risk that could have catapulted it into oblivion; instead, its successful gambit exhibited an artistic maturity beyond many of our wildest dreams.

For a relatively small company to go beyond repeating another “La Traviata” or “La Boheme” demands a formidable effort. Singers know those old roles; drapery sets exist for an asking price.

Eugene Opera, however, rethought Adams’ opera from scratch: New sets and costumes were designed and built, and musicians, both vocal and instrumental, had to learn an entirely new musical idiom.

The vocal quality on Friday evening was exceptional. Kelly Kaduce as Pat Nixon led a group of fine singing actors. Kaduce was easily as good as the excellent Janis Kelly in the Met’s HD simulcast of this opera last year. Kaduce’s warm, incisive voice and acting skills made Pat Nixon’s lyrical aria in Act II the vocal highlight of the evening.

But other singers were not far behind. Lee Gregory played Nixon with vocal subtlety and his usual virile acting. Two local artists Laura Decher-Wayte and Mark Beudert, if I am allowed to call our peripatetic general director local, were vocally vigorous and commanding in their roles as Madame Mao and Chairman Mao. Christopher Burchett‘s regal baritone carried Chou En-lai. In the buffoon role of Henry Kissinger, bass Michael Gallup landed on his feet.

Supporting singers also were spot on. The three secretaries, who repeat and write down every word Mao utters, no matter how nonsensical, were played by a vocally precise trio, Bereniece Jones, Amanda Crider, and Lina Delmastro. The chorus under the direction of John Jantzi handled Adam’s demanding rhythmic schemes with assurance.

Conductor Andrew Bisantz must be given the credit for having the orchestra in tremendous shape and for effectively coordinating everything. Whatever glitches there were in this rhythmically complex music, and there were some, especially at the very end, nothing detracted from its overall success.

In an effort to move away from the literal depiction of Nixon’s 1972 visit to China on which most productions are based, director Sam Helfrich, set designer Peter Beudert, and costume designer Jonna Hayden opted for a psychological approach.

The unit set of large wooden panels with blue stripes effectively evoked the monumental scale of this event while the direction and wide-ranging costumes underscored the all too human dimension of characters, especially their public and private divisions. Some scenes, such as Act I, scene I, were cleverly re-envisioned but in others Helfrich grabbed for humor in unlikely places.

I didn’t see any psychological depth either in the depiction of the drunken Nixons doing the twist at the end of the banquet scene or in the boozy last act. The ballet was cleverly staged, roping in chorus members to augment four well trained dancers.

The opera was a fitting conclusion to several weeks of extraordinary events surrounding the anniversary of Nixon’s visit to China.

Autobiography of John Adams takes us on a journey of musical magic

Published: Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 05:00AM

Copyright © 2012 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA

Among the most the interesting periods in the more than 400 years of opera are when one operatic style changes to another. With Nixon in China, a minimalist opera, we are in the midst of one of those major changes. The opera devotees who will be in the audience for Nixon in China, (March 16 and March 18), may not realize it but they will be watching and listening to one of those historic moments in opera.

Opera has gone through a long history of change from its Renaissance beginnings in the 16th century period with the operas of Monteverdi up to the present with the new minimalist operas of John Adams and Philip Glass.  Minimalist  opera is part of the overall minimalism art scene of painting, sculpture and music.  In music, the simplest possible material is repeated many times with small changes that are introduced gradually or with the addition of other simple repetitive material that eventually changes in its synchronization to produce a trance-like effect.  It is often referred to as repetitive music that can become hypnotic.

John Cage  laid the ground work for minimalist opera, but it was John Adams who first put his minimalist opera Nixon in China on the stage of major opera houses  in the United States and England for the first time.

John Adams

I could not have been more rudely awakened than when I heard Adam’s music for the first time at a Met HD/live broadcast of Dr. Atomic.  Thus by the time I went to see “Nixon in China” I was better prepared for a full afternoon of John Adams’ music. After two more viewings of Nixon (it was broadcast on Public Television and I recorded it), I was totally entranced by the work. Up until that time, my entire knowledge of Adam’s music had been limited to his movie scores and Dr. Atomic. Adams was still a new voice to me in the field of opera and I was still remembering the romantic works of Verdi, Bellini and Rossini.  On the other hand, Nixon in China reminded me of the first time I heard Richard Strauss’ Salome with its dissonances and atonality. However, by my third viewing of that opera over the years, I have become so engrossed with its music and that I hardly hear the initial discord that I first remembered.

What makes it so easy to be mesmerized by the score of Nixon in China is the fact that the libretto is based on a piece of current history and involves two very dissimilar political societies. It is difficult to imagine this opera being set to any other type of music and be as effective.

I  urge everyone to attend the upcoming performace of  Nixon in China and see for themselves a new style of opera that will change your thinking of  21st century opera.

UO Today week of January 9, 2012:
Bryna Goodman, professor, Modern Chinese History, and Mark Beudert, director, Eugene Opera, discuss the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s visit to China and the opera Nixon in China presented by the Eugene Opera on March 16 and 18, 2012.

Eugene schedule:
Channel 23-Wednesday 8 p.m.; Friday 5 p.m.; Sunday 7 p.m.
Channel 29-Tuesday 11:30 p.m. and Wednesday 11:30 a.m.

Portland schedule:
Channel 29 (Portland Community Media)-Wednesday 8:30 p.m. and Friday 6:30 p.m.
Comcast Channel 27 and Verizon Channel 35 (MetroEast Community Media)-Monday 12 p.m.;
Tuesday 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Wednesday 5:30 p.m.; Thursday 3:30 p.m.; Friday 6 p.m.;
Saturday 12 p.m.; and Sunday 6:30 p.m.

The online link to watch this is:

http://media.uoregon.edu/channel/2011/11/29/uo-today-495-bryna-goodmanmark-beudert/

A Witness Sees History Restaged and Rewritten

By MAX FRANKEL
WHAT’S it like to watch your own experience turn up as grand opera: in my case, finding my reporting about Nixon in China suddenly evoked by the Metropolitan Opera’s production of John Adams’s “Nixon in China”? Very weird. I kept imagining myself onstage in the prepositioned press crowd as Air Force One dropped from the sky in Beijing. And there I was again among the toasters clinking glasses that night at Chou En-lai’s banquet for the president.

Weirder still was my realization that one of the main characters in the opera was still living — and surely sulking — just a mile across town. That’s because the Henry A. Kissinger I know from years of professional contact is just a wee bit more fascinating and complicated than the lecherous lackey of landlords who drags his namesake through the muck in the Met’s drama. He sings:

She was so hot
I was hard-put
To be polite.
When the first cut
— Come on you slut! —
Scored her brown skin
I started in,
Man upon hen!

Then too the devious Richard M. Nixon who haunts my generation and who still speaks to us on tape embodies a lot more intrigue, pretension and paranoia than the smooth Nixon baritone up onstage. (“This air agrees with me./Wish we could send some to D.C.”) The forbearing Pat Nixon at his side does resemble the first lady in my head, but her poetic soprano longings for the simple life sure vex that memory. I also insist that to a billion contemporary Chinese, Mao Tse-tung has a lot more to answer for than the merry chaos and inscrutable epigrams this opera uses to recall his reckless ardors. (“Founders come first/Then profiteers.”) As for Chiang Ch’ing (Mrs. Mao), well, her artful shrieks clear up to high D actually do some justice to her vicious real-life domination of the Cultural Revolution.

All that I’m seeing sung, danced and acted out at the Met is indeed live and raw stuff from 1972, which continues to shape American policy: the crass calculations of international politics, the yearnings of two then-exhausted societies seeking renewal in each other’s embrace and the hunger of hugely misguided leaders pining for the solace of justification.

There’s no denying the art in “Nixon in China”: the brisk rhythms of Mr. Adams’s music; the wit and elliptical fantasies of the librettist, Alice Goodman; and the inventions of the director, Peter Sellars. They first seized on this subject in 1983, a mere decade after the president’s journey, and finished the work in 1987, more than six years before the deaths of Nixon and his wife. (Like China, the creators of “Nixon” had to wait a generation for the ultimate American recognition, in their case from the new moguls of the Met.)

So what does the resonance of reality do for art? And what does art owe to reality?

If Picasso can deconstruct a guitar, why shouldn’t opera distort diplomacy and pervert personality? Verdi, the grand master of dramas that combined personal passions with social and political conflict, said that “to imitate truth may be a good thing but to invent truth is better.” Yet he let 2,500 years pass before borrowing real personages for “Nabucco” and 300 years before recreating the struggle of dogmatism versus liberalism in the Spain of Philip II (“Don Carlos”). In stark contrast the conspiracy theorists of Hollywood, led by Oliver Stone (“JFK,” “Nixon”), reject such respectful patience as they design ever more numerous docudramas (pace Mark Zuckerberg). Well, “Nixon in China” persuades me to take my stand with Shakespeare, who chose a century as the minimal safe distance between actual events and his iambic-speaking kings.

Opera, of course, is improbable by definition. It is musically and emotionally histrionic. No one will ever mistake operatic recitative for actual conversation, no matter what names and costumes the singers bear. So why bother, as in “Nixon,” to lure us to a fictional enterprise with contemporary characters and scenes from an active memory bank? Why use actualities, or the manufactured actualities of our television screens and newspapers, to fuel the drama?

The answer is obvious but also treacherous. Newsreel drama can help to overcome the musty odor that inhabits many opera houses. The siren song of a familiar tale can draw a new generation to the box office; to this day we implore our politicians to make surprising policy, to pull off a “Nixon in China.” Above all, a seemingly relevant story can harness the power of contemporary experience, tap into the knowledge and emotions that audiences possess before the overture and so build on reality to stake a claim to deeper truths.

The danger is that despite the verisimilitudes of text, setting and costume, a viewer’s grasp of events may not match the fabric being woven onstage. What the creators intend to be profundity may strike the knowing as parody. By appropriating and embellishing a recognizable history, the art may end up straining our credulity.

“Nixon in China” illustrates the problem. As the Met’s program notes observe, it is, after all, a “media event about a media event.” The opera is plotless, a mere depiction of scenes from a diplomatic marriage. Confined by circumstance, it is mostly without passion, lacking the swollen strife of the grandest operas; there are no turbulent love affairs, no corrosive jealousies, no religious ecstasies, no unfathomable calamities.

There is no room in this scenario for the back stories all of us original actors brought to the journey. The great convulsions of Mao’s China, which had claimed millions of lives, are only lamely evoked in scattered phrases about revolutionaries who swim as “fish swim through the sea,” endure a “long march,” are made to “leap forward” and implored to “seize the day.” Similarly, the opera offers only vague allusions to the memory, then raw, of Americans and Chinese battling in Korea and to the winds that drove Nixon across the Pacific, his retreat from cold-war demagoguery and bitter defeat in Vietnam.

Besides, the main images produced by this historic journey turn out to inhabit only the first of the opera’s three acts. A perfect rendering of the presidential jet, the Spirit of ’76, appears from the sky and disgorges the hatless statesman, followed by his first lady in iconic red. True to a memorable photograph, Nixon shakes the hand of Chou En-lai, which Americans had rudely scorned for a generation.

The welcoming chorus strikes a slightly false note when it sings Mao’s 1929 strictures to be kind to peasants and captive foes; it might more aptly have intoned his dictum for party discipline, to hold “the individual subordinate to the organization.” Yet the airport chitchat between Nixon and Chou is accurate enough, and Nixon’s mind is aptly described as preoccupied with his image in American living rooms, with domestic “enemies” gnawing at him like rats and with his constant self-tutoring to stand “steady like a rock.”

Onstage, as then, the men are next rushed off to Mao’s reception room. His tenor sings a convincing version of that frail chairman’s frail banter, bad jokes and opaque metaphors, all duly emulated by his American guests. Summit meetings really are like that. But what the opera fails to capture are the truly operatic convulsions implicit in this scene. The despotic god of Red China was blessing the visit of an American whose whole career had been built on Red baiting. You had to escape the cocoon of the presidential party to catch sight of the perplexed crowds that gathered around photos of the meeting when they appeared without real explanation on wall newspapers around Beijing.

Nor does the opera encompass the elegant diplomacies and strategic minuets by which Chou and Kissinger, seated at the fringe, brought their bosses to this encounter. In Beijing that day you could almost hear the anguished cries of betrayal from their Vietnamese and Taiwanese allies; unseen, their choreographed infidelities had been an essential prelude to the entire journey. And I clearly felt the tremors in far-away Moscow as the United States and China now made common cause against the Soviet Union; the tectonic balance of power was shifting beneath our feet.

On, then, to the first of the week’s banquets, which was little more than another photo op, a joyous exchange of toasts over fiery mao-tais and trite words. Mr. Adams’s music captures the frothy excitement we all felt, but it can only hint at the quaint renderings of American tunes (like “Home on the Range”) with which the People’s Liberation Army Band entertained us. The incongruity of its performance still pierces my memory more sharply than any modern atonality. Even more discordant is the declaration by the opera’s Nixon: “I opposed China./I was wrong.” He offered his hosts no such confession.

Having exhausted the most familiar images of the Nixon trip the stage action now travels a very different road from mine. Instead of following Mrs. Nixon on her dutiful sightseeing, as the opera does, I spent hours exploring the terrain that only a few renegade Americans had trod for a quarter-century. The opera shows the first lady greeting cheerful, well-coached children. I encountered dozens of youngsters who burst into tears and buried their heads in mothers’ skirts at the sight of the scary hairy, long-nosed monsters from abroad. They gave by far the most poignant demonstration of the gulf produced by decades of isolation.

For just an instant, a few bent figures then cross the stage sweeping a path for the visitors. And that vignette violates my most vibrant memory of the entire week. For what I really saw was hundreds of thousands of women trudging through the streets at dawn, raking away perhaps an inch of snow with pathetic brooms of cord-bound twigs. As I wrote at the time and wonder still: What power can turn out such multitudes at the drop of a snowflake? What force can evoke such pride of work and thoroughness? What poverty commands such labor? And what wealth of satisfaction results from such collective and monumental effort?

How little we knew of these people. Yes, the Nixon trip was essentially just a piece of theater, but my out-of-sight interviews and ventures that week left me with a decidedly deeper drama than the Met’s reproduction.

In any case, Act II catapults from the real to the surreal when we reach the Nixons’ night at Chiang Ch’ing’s high-voltage ballet. Instead of glumly enduring the humiliation of having to applaud the rout of the ballet’s “running dogs of capitalism,” as they really did, the Nixon and Kissinger characters are here physically flung into the middle of the ideological dance. Henry assumes the role of a servile agent of landowners and a defiler of peasant womanhood; Pat becomes the comforter of the downtrodden; and Dick, her confused helper, breaks into one of his chronic sweats. Since this is the only opportunity for the intrusion of actual ballet, the whipping of the workers and their liberation by the Red Detachment of Women goes on for quite a time, until Mrs. Mao defiantly ends up, “At the breast/Of history I sucked and pissed” and through her dogma, wished to be “A grain of sand in heaven’s eye/And I shall taste eternal joy.”

Finished now with the historical and the ideological, the opera takes a final turn, in Act III, to the psychological. Arrayed before us on Freudian couches, the Nixons and Maos soliloquize about their youthful days of personality formation. The chairman and his bride (actually his fourth) recall dancing to the romance of revolution and battling their way to power. The president harks back to his Navy combat and how “five-card stud taught me a lot about mankind,” to “speak softly and don’t show your hand.” Kissinger uses his couch for a roll with his translator, avers that life is hard, asks to be shown to the toilet and never reappears.

It is easy to mock the story lines of most operas, but that is not my main purpose here. I mean to suggest, in all sympathy, that when living reality is so blatantly harnessed to bait the audience with familiarity and to create a heightened sense of excitement, it risks being constrained by that same reality from reaching true depths of drama and character. At the sudden and surprisingly ambiguous end of “Nixon in China” we hear Chou’s plaintive aria asking, “How much of what we did was good?/Everything seems to move beyond/Our remedy.”

I left wondering whether the opera’s creators might not share his anxiety.

Max Frankel, a former executive editor of The New York Times, won a Pulitzer Prize for covering Nixon’s trip.

NEWS RELEASE | January 5, 2012
Contact: Patricia Kiernan Johnson, Marketing & Media Manager

212-796-8620, ext. 217; PKJohnson@operaamerica.org

OPERA AMERICA AWARDS

THE OPERA FUND: AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT GRANTS

Sixteen Opera Companies Nationwide Receive Awards Totaling Nearly $200,000

New York, NY—OPERA America, the national service organization for opera, is pleased to announce that it has awarded nearly $200,000 in Audience Development grants, as part of The Opera Fund, to 16 U.S. opera companies.

OPERA America’s Audience Development grants help opera companies to implement community engagement activities that develop new audiences for American opera and music-theater, engage diverse audiences, deepen current audiences’ understanding and appreciation of new and existing American works, and increase the participation of audiences in a company’s activities.

Recipients of the Audience Development grants are: Boston Lyric Opera, The Dallas Opera, Eugene Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Houston Grand Opera,Nashville Opera, North Carolina Opera, Opera Colorado, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis,Piedmont Opera (Winston Salem, NC), Pittsburgh Opera, Portland Opera,Tulsa Opera and Virginia Opera.

With the help of Audience Development funding, grantees will implement activities such as public lectures/demonstrations, seminars or master classes by the creators and performers of the work; events in partnership with other local cultural institutions, such as museums; residencies for creative and performing artists to work in and with the community; and creation of online and other technology-based audience development tools.

“Promoting the enjoyment of opera, especially North American opera, among new and existing audiences is an essential cornerstone of OPERA America’s mission,” stated Marc A. Scorca, president and CEO. “Through the generosity of Opera Fund donors, the Audience Development grants give OPERA America the valuable opportunity to assist opera companies nationwide with nurturing current and future opera audiences, ensuring that our art form will continue to flourish for years to come.”

Grants were awarded through a competitive application process by an independent panel of experts, including Andrea Allen, director of education at Seattle Repertory Theatre; Cori Ellison, artistic director at Opera Company of the Highlands and dramaturg; Jeanette Honig Grafman, director of operations and educational outreach at Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano; and Stewart Wallace, composer. The panel evaluated the 29 grant applications based on the merit of the project, quality of the project concept, artistic merit, the strength of appropriate partnerships and the resources of the company, including the ability to fully evaluate the project.

Since its inception, The Opera Fund has enabled OPERA America to award grants of nearly $11 million to assist companies with the expenses associated with the creation, production and enjoyment of new works. In alternate years, Opera Fund grants are also awarded in the category of Repertoire Development, providing financial support to member companies and their creative partners in association with the commissioning and development of new North American opera and music-theater. Over the past 20 years, these grants have assisted opera companies with the development of works such as Akhnaten (Philip Glass),Cold Sassy Tree (Carlisle Floyd), Dead Man Walking (Jake Heggie), Elmer Gantry(Robert Aldridge), Frau Margot (Thomas Pasatieri), Little Women (Mark Adamo),Margaret Garner (Richard Danielpour), Nixon in China (John Adams), Shining Brow (Daron Hagen) and A Streetcar Named Desire (André Previn). The Opera Fund was launched by The National Endowment for the Arts, and is funded by The Helen F. Whitaker Fund, Lee Day Gillespie, Lloyd and Mary Ann Gerlach, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James S. and John K. Knight Foundation and the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation.

Audience Development Grants: Project Details

Boston Lyric Opera: The Inspector by John Musto and Mark Campbell ($5,000)

In support of two lecture performance programs, which include live performances of Musto’s work: Signature Series: An Afternoon with John Musto, a to be presented at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Opera Night, presented at the Boston Public Library.

The Dallas Opera: The Aspern Papers by Dominick Argento ($15,000)

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the world premiere, The Dallas Opera will present a new production of Argento’s The Aspern Papers in April 2013. Many activities have been planned to explore themes and elements of the opera, including a free film screening, Italian food and wine tasting, an event about the cultivation of cutting flowers in collaboration with the Dallas Arboretum, a book club for The Aspern Papers novella, as well as panel discussions.

Eugene Opera: Nixon in China by John Adams and Alice Goodman ($20,000)

Eugene Opera is partnering with several local organizations, including the Confucius Institute and Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, to present educational events exploring the historical content of the opera’s plot, as well as the performance history of the work. Additionally, they will place Quick Response (QR) codes on billboards, which unlock a 10% discount on tickets; and send an original DVD to non-operagoers in zip codes of the highest number of regular opera attendees.

Fort Worth Opera: Three Decembers by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer ($9,000)

Partnering with the Modern Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth Opera will present an “Overture” event with Jake Heggie, who will describe the creation of the work, as well as its journey from premiere to various second productions. Furthermore, they will host live-streamed conversations with the composer and artists during the rehearsals leading up to the performances.

Houston Grand Opera: The Bricklayer (working title) by Gregory Spears and Farnoosh Moshiri ($4,500)

Part of the four-year “East + West” initiative at Houston Grand Opera, this new chamber opera will incorporate western and Iranian musical styles. In conjunction with the production, the company has planned a series of storytelling workshops, presentations about Persian artistic and historical culture to precede each performance, as well as a recording with KUHF-Houston Public Radio for broadcast via radio and online streaming.

Nashville Opera: The Difficulty in Crossing a Field by David Lang and Marc Wellman ($7,500)

Nashville is presenting this work as part of their new “Nashville Opera @ Series”, which features four operas presented in a four different venues. To engage their audiences they are presenting a film screening, as well as developing various web-based resources including an online study guide, as well as a YouTube and podcast series to discuss the themes and subject matter of the work.

North Carolina Opera: Les Enfants Terribles by Phillip Glass and Susan Kander ($5,000)

With the goal of creating a young professionals group, North Carolina Opera is planning a series of events in partnership with the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh and the Raleigh Downtown Alliance. At these events, which highlight music and themes from Glass’s work, they will distribute handbills with Quick Response (QR) codes that access a social media space and special ticket offers.

Opera Colorado: Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán and Marcela Fuentes-Berain ($10,000)

Opera Colorado will present an Amazon Festival in coordination with their production of Florencia en el Amazonas. The festival will include events that highlight dance, food, film, literature, fine art and artifacts of Hispanic/Latino/Spanish speaking cultures.

Opera Company of Philadelphia: Dark Sisters by Nico Muhly and Stephen Karam ($9,000)

Opera Company of Philadelphia will present a series of events for the public to engage with the creators of Dark Sisters, including an interactive video conference with Nico Muhly, in which he will discuss the creation of Dark Sisters and his individual career; a writing seminar with Stephen Karam on his approach to creating the libretto; and a moderated discussion with both Muhly and Karam accompanied by performances of selected excerpts.

Opera Theater of Pittsburgh: Night Caps — to be commissioned ($10,000)

Opera Theater of Pittsburgh will commission a series of five chamber operas, each 15-20 minutes in length, which each take place in the same hotel room on subsequent nights. In conjunction with these new works, the company will present public performances, interviews with the creative teams, as well as a dedicated website for the work.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis: The Two Sides of Love (working title) by Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer ($25,000)

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has created a Blanchard Opera Steering committee to make meaningful connections on the company’s behalf with organizations and individuals in the African-American community in St. Louis. Specific activities include artist residencies with the African-American soprano Kendall Gladen and composer Terence Blanchard serving as community ambassadors for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Additionally, they plan to create a documentary of Gladen’s life, career and work as a community ambassador in St. Louis.

Piedmont Opera: The Crucible by Dr. Robert Ward and Bernard Stambler ($10,000)

To honor Dr. Robert Ward and celebrate the established partnership between Piedmont Opera and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the company is presenting The Crucible. In coordination with the work, the company has planned an event that compares performances from the play with corresponding scenes from the opera, a roundtable discussion with Ward and a study guide for students at local high schools who will perform the full-length play in the coming year.

Pittsburgh Opera: Moby-Dick by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer ($10,000)

The company is planning a new initiative titled Opera Forward in which they will present events that will delve into the content of Moby-Dick, as well as the layers of this specific production. The program will explore many aspects including the literary work that inspired the opera and the physical challenges of the set.

Portland Opera: Galileo Galilei by Phillip Glass and Mary Zimmerman ($15,000)

Portland Opera will present an outreach tour of Galileo Galiei in Eugene, OR; lectures with artists in collaboration with the Portland Art Museum and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art; a planetarium program on Galileo’s life and work with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; as well as film screening with the Northwest Film Center.

Tulsa Opera: Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally ($14,000)

In collaboration with the Living Arts of Tulsa, Tulsa Opera will present “Crime and Punishment,” an exhibition in support of Dead Man Walking. Additionally, they will partner with the University of Tulsa College of Law to co-sponsor a public event featuring Sister Helen Prejean. Finally, they plan a series of lectures with composer Jake Heggie.

Virginia Opera: Orphée by Phillip Glass ($15,000)

Presenting a work by Phillip Glass for the first time in the company’s history, Virginia Opera will present “An Evening with Glass” with the Chrysler Museum of the Arts, in which they will feature the works of Glass and highlight the upcoming production of Orphée. Furthermore, they are planning “An Evening of Iconic Storytelling” with the Naro Theatre in Norfolk, as well as film screenings with the Byrd theatre and discussions with area Universities.

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Faust will be shown this Wednesday, Jan 11 at  6:30 in select theaters, including Cinemark 17 in Springfield. 800-326-3264 for ticket info.

I recently watched Gounod’s Faust at on  the MET’s HD/live  broadcast. When I saw this new production, I thought of a couple of other times I had seen the opera.  Normally I am a traditionalist when it comes to opera. I like it best when it is sung in the language in which it was written, the director follows the original stage directions and sets it in  the period for which it was written.
    The first time I saw Faust I was still in high school probably and about 15 or 16.  The Met opera still toured and visited most major cities including Cleveland, Ohio. I lived in Youngstown which was only about 65 mules away and after school I would take the afternoon train to Cleveland  for a performance.  On one of those excursions I saw my first Faust.  Mephistopheles  was sung by Ezio Pinza who at that time was the leading bass at the Met. The production  was traditional down to Pinza’s red tights and a peaked hat with a feather as was the  scene in act III of Marguerite sitting outside her house with a spinning wheel (in the current Met production she has a sewing machine).
    Then there was the Faust that I saw on a video done by the Vienna State opera in which Marguerite was dressed as a nun in a full habit.  I never understood the directors this interpretation of the virginal heroine.  Also in this same production in act II when Mephistopheles sing the aria “Le Veau d’or” (the golden calf) which is  a blasphemous entertainment for the crowd, he wheels out a life-size version of a golden calf rigged up as a slot machine. It spouts gold coins from its mouth each time the handle is pulled.  So much for interpretation.
    I was pleasantly surprised by the updated current production at the Met.  It is set in the intervening years between the first World War and World War II and the setting is an atomic labratory.  Faust is an atomic scientist weary and despondent over the devastation the bomb can cause and is contemplating suicide.
    Despite the exotic setting,  I was swept up by the music and particularly the singing and acting of Jonas Kaufmann ( Faust), Rene Pape (Mephistopheles) and Marina  Poplavskaya (Marguerite). Suprisingly, putting the Faust legend in the atomic age seemed well suited. I am sure von Goethe would have approved.
    The director was Des McAuff who had directed the Broadway hit “The Jersey Boys”.  This was his first opera and he did one hell of a job.
 
Uncle Lenny