Auckland Arts Festival's Nixon in China, co-produced with Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and New Zealand Opera, cements why John Adams has created an operatic survivor.
Setting Alice Goodman's superlative libretto, the composer has achieved an extraordinary feat of theatrical reconciliation. There's much muscle-flexing grandeur here, worthy of a minimalist Meyerbeer.
Wagnerian climaxes suit on-stage political ceremony; thrills are visceral when the music is taken on rushing streams of hypnotically cross-hatched rhythms. Yet the Nixons, Mao Zedong and his wife Chou En Lai and Henry Kissinger emerge from history as human beings.
All have stellar turns. Hye Jung Lee's Madame Mao deals out whiplash coloratura, with fiery arpeggios and top Ds while Madeleine Pierard's brunette Pat Nixon touchingly ponders eternal peace for all time. Chen-Ye Yuan's moving final aria leaves us with Chou En Lai's unforgettable image of the chill of grace heavy on the morning grass.
Ultimately, despite spectacular chorus work and a virtuoso APO coaxed by maestro Joseph Mechavich to run from shimmer to shout within a few bars, the opera's final resolution is reflective.
