Nixon in China

In February 1972, the American president Richard Nixon went to China to meet Mao Zedong. In the context of the war in Vietnam and the cold war, this encounter marked a turning point in Chinese‑American relations. Nixon in China addresses the political thaw instigated by ping-pong diplomacy, which began by an invitation of the American table tennis players to their Chinese counterparts, one year before the presidential visit.

Composer John Adams made this event of modern history the subject of his first opera. Premiered in 1987, this a mesmerising work in which the pulsations and repetitions typical of minimalism are combined with melodic lines of great lyricism. Rather than a political pageant in poster colours, Nixon in China puts great emphasis on the protagonists as real people. From the pomp of the public displays to the intimacy of the protagonists’ most private moments, Adams and librettist Alice Goodman reveal the characters behind the headlines. This landmark American opera is live on OperaVision from Budapest for the Hungarian premiere at the State Opera in a production directed by András Almási-Tóth and conducted by Gergely Vajda.