John Coolidge Adams is an American composer of classical music and opera whose first opera was inspired by U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China in what year?
Nixon in China Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with choreography by Mark Morris. When Sellars approached Adams with the idea for the opera in 1985, Adams was initially reluctant, but eventually decided that the work could be a study in how myths come to be, and accepted the project. Goodman's libretto was the result of considerable research into Nixon's visit, though she disregarded most sources published after the 1972 trip.
The Canal Ballad The Ballad of [the] Canal or The Canal Ballad (Chinese: 运河谣) is a 2012 opera by composer Yin Qing based on Chinese folk music. The libretto was supplied by playwrights Huang Weiruo and Dong Ni and celebrates the story of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the longest canal in the world. The opera premiered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (China) in 2012. The use of Chinese folk music was a departure from the NCPA's previous western-influenced Chinese-language operas. NCPA's in house audio visual company released a making of documentary including footage of rehearsals in July 2017.