Richard Nixon lives again - in the opera world

CHICAGO, May 21: A dozen years after his death and more than three decades after he left the White House in disgrace, Richard Nixon is alive as never before in the grand opera world, which can't seem to get enough of him.

''Nixon in China,'' the John Adams' opera first staged in 1987, is in the midst of a new wave of popularity and performances, the latest being a triumphal turn on the stage of the Chicago Opera Theatre where it opened May 19.

Adams' seductive yet complex and minimalist melodies, as well as librettist Alice Goodman's poetry turn Nixon's 1972 breakthrough visit to China into a timeless tour of human nature.

Here again are Nixon, his wife Pat, Henry Kissinger, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, his powerful wife, Chiang Ch'ing, and foreign minister Chou En-lai, facing life's sunset and their own banalities even at the height of power.

In what opera does best, the aggregate soars far beyond the parts and personalities, and even the China visit itself.

That is why it continues to endure and will likely be coming to life on stages 50 or 100 years from now, believes Brian Dickie, general manager of the Chicago Opera Theatre.

''These are universal, timeless characters,'' he said in an interview. ''They happen to be Nixon and Mao but throughout human history there have been similar types of people.'' Its anchor in history should not cause it to be dated or make it incomprehensible for future generations, he said, and if anything it might be updated in years to come to morph the characters into more contemporaneous political figures of the future.

One thing is certain. The opera has enjoyed a remarkable exposure in recent times. The current production's sets, costumes and other assets were done in association with several other US companies, principally the Opera Theatre of St Louis which has already staged it.

'TEA PARTY IN SUBURBIA'

Other venues where it has or will be seen are the Portland Opera in Oregon, the Houston Grand Opera, Opera Colorado and the Minnesota Opera as well as companies in San Francisco and Cincinnati, Dickie said.

The English National Opera will mount Nixon in June and July.

The current Chicago offering, which Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein called ''one production all opera fans should see,'' features banks of television monitors which replay actual videos from the 1972 meeting.

It was an occasion that opened doors between anti-communist Nixon and a powerful Chinese leadership which had been estranged from the United States for nearly a quarter century.

Brought to the human level, the opera depicts something that is ''like a tea party in suburbia,'' Dickie says in the program notes.

Enshrining contemporary figures into opera is trendy just now.

Chicago's Lyric Opera plans to stage another work by Adams, ''Dr Atomic,'' about Robert Oppenheimer, who helped develop the atomic bomb.

And the English National Opera later this year will offer a new production based on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, with Asian beats and rap, and the title role in the hands of an Irish-Indian nightclub master of ceremonies.

Dickie joked that he doubts future generations will be seeing an opera called ''Bush in Iraq,'' though in the rarified world of opera,anything is possible.

REUTERS