John Adams’ “Nixon in China” at the Deutsche Oper Berlin: Bighead Propaganda

John Adams’ opera “Nixon in China” tells the story of the former US president’s state visit to Mao Tse-tung. The directing collective “Hauen und Stechen” is turning it into a garish, visually powerful political show spectacle in Berlin.

“Our handshake changes the times”: Richard Nixon meets Mao Tse-tung, the American president travels to the communist People’s Republic of China in February 1972. The first state visit by a US president to China is stylized worldwide as the media mega-event of the era. In his memoirs, Nixon compares the meeting with the moon landing. Great cinema. But is the political coup suitable as opera material? Yes! As a reminder: Georg Friedrich Handel turned the ancient world politics of Rome and Egypt into the brilliant dramma per musica about Caesar and Cleopatra in “Giulio Cesare in Egitto”. The American John Adams, born in 1947, master of highly expressive minimalism, wanted to take on Handel when he designed “Nixon in China” with the director Peter Sellars, the American opera of the century, premiered in 1987 at the Houston Grand Opera. Since then, they have performed on many stages, and the production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin is now a brightly colored, satirical-utopian spectacle.