Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson Head WNO's New 'Nixon in China'

By Marcus Bennett

The Washington National Opera opens a new production of John Adams' "Nixon in China" this week, starring Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

The staging uses rare archival film. Projection designer Bill Morrison located Super 8 footage at the Nixon Library, shot by H. R. Haldeman and others during the 1972 trip. "The footage is amazing," Pulitzer told OperaWire. "As a backdrop, it brings authentic color and detail to the people and places, and draws us into the events with real immediacy."

Pulitzer, a stage director who has worked at the San Francisco Opera, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Omaha, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the Canadian Opera Company, previously directed "Nixon in China" with the LA Philharmonic.

Why is this production arriving now?

The project was postponed by the pandemic. "It's very gratifying to see it back on the boards, a project that Francesca, Tim O'Leary and everyone at WNO believe in strongly enough to bring back," Pulitzer said, referring to WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and general director Tim O'Leary. "And it feels like an even stronger moment to present it, as part of the conversation around America's 250th."

Her concept grew from vintage TV Guide and Time magazine imagery. "Americans experienced the visit through the press, mostly through television," she said. She wanted to capture that history-making coverage and the political shift that occurred "when many Americans were all collectively watching the same news on TV."

How is DAR Constitution Hall being transformed?

Cabaret-style tables will bring the audience closer to the performers. "This was really Francesca Zambello's vision for how DAR would be transformed into a bigger theater to hold the performances of the orchestra, chorus, and cast while drawing in the audience to a more intimate, close relationship to the story telling," Pulitzer said.

The hall's scale suits the opera's arc, she argued: leaders "who rose to such heights that they became icons," then an ending that questions "their mortality and their place in history." Of the seating plan, she said: "My hope is that as we watch from the tables as well as the other seats, that we feel like they're just like us and we are like them, in the end."

What does the opera say to today's audiences?

Pulitzer draws a direct line to the present. "Every day in the news there are stories about our relationship with China," she said, citing "the race on AI, power sources, fabrication of goods." Sharing authentic footage from the visit, she added, reminds viewers "how fractured and questionable or reliable our current images have become."

She calls the piece "one of my favorite operas from start to finish," singling out Pat Nixon's tour of the countryside and the music of the arrival.

On her two stars, both described as icons, she said: "Both are incredible singing actors who bring profound artistry to their work, continuously refreshing and re-engaging with their own creative process."

Audiences, she promised, can expect "authentic footage from the trip, a starry cast playing iconic leaders who shaped history... the propaganda of the red detachment original ballet Madame Mao created, and a wild ride that lands us on the shores of existential questions about our place in time and history."