Nixon in China

A contemporary and topical opera for our time: When US President Richard Nixon lands on Chinese soil one foggy February morning in 1972, the world holds its collective breath. After decades of silence, the rival powers are starting to come together. A momentous instant in diplomatic history and a superlative media spectacle unfolds as cameras and microphones follow Nixon and Mao Zedong constantly. American composer John Adams and librettist Alice Goodman have taken original, historical documents to create a poppy narration of modern myths and spectacular imagery politics. This minimalist music opera follows the protocol of the state visit like a satirically exaggerated TV documentary, and shows figures between larger-than-life self-presentation and boundless self-deception. Musical theatre collective Hauen und Stechen, known for its anarchic directorial bent, focuses amidst the rush of images on the propagandistic aspect of the summit and provides furious insight into the power plays of the 20th century.