ribonucleic
06-08-2014, 07:11 PM
Nothing seems more inherently unlikely than the idea of a great American opera�possibly the greatest since Porgy and Bess�based on the events surrounding President Richard Nixon�s visit to China in 1972. When the director Peter Sellars first proposed the subject, Adams assumed he was joking. At the premiere, which took place at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, many critics thought the same. Yet Sellars knew what he was doing. By yanking opera into a universally familiar contemporary setting, he was almost forcing his composer to clean out all the cobwebs of the European past. Adams also had the advantage of an extraordinary libretto by the poet Alice Goodman. Many lines come straight from the documentary record�the speeches and poetry of Chairman Mao, the fine-spun oratory of Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, the convoluted utterances and memoirs of Nixon�but they coalesce into an epic poem of recent history, a dream narrative in half-rhyming couplets. - Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise
The 1987 recording captures a fine orchestra performance by the Orchestra of St. Luke�s, with Edo De Waart in full command of the score�s subtle textures and rhythmic complexity. The singers had created their roles and had lived in them for at some time at the point of recording. ... In this fine Nonesuch recording... the best that the opera has to offer is recorded forever. - Chris Mullins, Opera Today
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