Washington National Opera - Nixon in China

Washington National Opera brings John Adams’s landmark opera Nixon in China to the stage, revisiting President Richard Nixon’s 1972 meeting with Chairman Mao and the private lives behind a world-shaping diplomatic spectacle. Adams’s propulsive score and Alice Goodman’s libretto move between public ceremony and personal reflection, from Nixon’s arrival in China to the famous encounter with Mao and a final reckoning with memory and history. Soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Thomas Hampson portray Pat and Richard Nixon, with Robert Spano conducting and Elkhanah Pulitzer directing. Archival film imagery and Jessica Lang’s choreography add vivid layers to this meeting of history, music and theatrical vision.