A longtime collaborator of John Adams and champion of his music, Marin Alsop directs this live recording of Opera Colorado’s 25th Anniversary Celebration production of Nixon in China, presented at Denver’s new Ellie Caulkins Opera House during the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention, and featuring an internationally recognized cast. Alice Goodman’s epic libretto and John Adams’s distinctive music weave together a colorful fabric of actual events from President Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China with intimate examinations of the opera’s real life characters. The spectacle, drama, humor and pathos of this masterpiece remain as compelling today as when the opera was premièred in 1987.
"Nixon is a young man’s opera—loud, louder, loudest. But Alsop balances rhythmic drive with careful pointers to Adam’s later, more lyrical achievements…Robert Orth gives a remarkable sung impression of the president’s speaking voice."
BBC Music Magazine
"Naxos’ new Nixon…seems doubly auspicious, given Orth’s experience in the title role…and given the guiding experience of Marin Alsop, a vastly more inventive and subtle conductor that Edo de Waart who presided over the Nonesuch version…Orth is an impressive Nixon."
International Record Review
"Nixon in China is rich enough to withstand different interpretations, and Marin Alsop is the persuasive conductor of this live recording from Opera Colorado’s 2008 production…Revisting Nixon, it’s good to find it still standing up well, and there can be little doubt that the work will retain its place in the repertory alongside great historical operas of the past."
Gramophone
"Alsop lets you hear the workings of the music…Adams’s score hasn’t dated a bit. It’s come up gleaming anew. And at budget price, Naxos’s Nixon really is one for our times."
Classic FM
"The value of listening to, as opposed to seeing, the opera is that it lets us get away from physical/national typecasting, and home in on the dreamy power-play driving this summit of Wagnerian characters."
The Financial Times
Label: Naxos
Range: Naxos American Classics
Catalogue Number: 8669022-24
Barcode: 730099902274
Release Date: 27th Oct 2009
Recording Date: 14th Jun 2008
Recording Location: Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver, Colorado
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