John Adams

Nixon
in China
CONDUCTOR Opera in three acts
John Adams Libretto by Alice Goodman
PRODUCTION
Peter Sellars Saturday, February 12, 2011, 1:00–4:45 pm

SET DESIGNER
Adrianne Lobel New Production
COSTUME DESIGNER
Dunya Ramicova
LIGHTING DESIGNER This production of Nixon in China was made
James F. Ingalls possible by a generous gift from the
Gramma Fisher Foundation, Marshalltown, Iowa.
CHOREOGRAPHER
Mark Morris Major funding was also received from
Edgar Foster Daniels and Roberta and David Elliott.
SOUND DESIGNER
Mark Grey Additional funding was received from American Express
and the National Endowment for the Arts.

GENERAL MANAGER
Peter Gelb

MUSIC DIRECTOR
James Levine Production originally created by English National Opera.
 2010–11 Season

The 4th Metropolitan Opera performance of

John Adams’s

Nixon
This performance
in China
is being broadcast
live over The conductor
Toll Brothers– John Adams
Metropolitan
Opera in order of appearance

International
Radio Network, Chou En-lai Chiang Ch’ing
sponsored by Russell Braun (Madame Mao Tse-tung)
Toll Brothers, Kathleen Kim
America’s luxury Nancy T’ang
homebuilder ,
® (First Secretary to Mao)
Ginger Costa Jackson * solo dancers
with generous
long-term Haruno Yamazaki
Second Secretary to Mao Kanji Segawa
support from Teresa S. Herold
The Annenberg
Foundation, the Third Secretary to Mao
Vincent A. Stabile Tamara Mumford *
Endowment for
Broadcast Media, Richard Nixon
and contributions James Maddalena
from listeners
worldwide. Pat Nixon
Janis Kelly
This performance is
also being broadcast Henry Kissinger
live on Metropolitan Richard Paul Fink
Opera Radio on
SIRIUS channel 78 Mao Tse-tung
and XM channel 79. Robert Brubaker

Saturday, February 12, 2011, 1:00–4:45 pm

 This afternoon’s performance is being transmitted
live in high definition to movie theaters worldwide.

The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant

from its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation.

Bloomberg is the global corporate sponsor of The Met: Live in HD.

Chorus Master Donald Palumbo

Musical Preparation Gregory Buchalter,
John Churchwell, Howard Watkins, Caren Levine,
and Steven Osgood
Assistant Stage Directors Eric Einhorn, Fred Frumberg,
and Kathleen Smith Belcher
English Coach Erie Mills
Prompter Gregory Buchalter
Met Titles Michael Panayos
Assistant to the Costume Designer Helene Siebrits
Assistant to Mark Morris Peter Wing Healey
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed
and painted by English National Opera Shops and
Metropolitan Opera Shops
Costumes constructed by English National Opera
Shops and Metropolitan Opera Costume Shop
Wigs by Metropolitan Opera Wig Department

Nixon in China is performed by arrangement with Hendon

Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, publisher and
copyright owner.

This performance is made possible in part by public

funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Before the performance begins, please switch off

cell phones and other electronic devices.

This production uses flash effects.

* Graduate of the
Lindemann Young Artist
Development Program

Yamaha is the official piano

of the Metropolitan Opera.
Met Titles
Latecomers will not be
admitted during the Met Titles are available for this performance in English, German, and
performance. Spanish. To activate, press the red button to the right of the screen in
front of your seat and follow the instructions provided. To turn off the
display, press the red button once again. If you have questions please
Visit metopera.org ask an usher at intermission.
What’s on Stage
John Adams conducts the Met premiere of his most famous
work, Nixon in China, an exploration of President Nixon’s
historic 1972 encounter with Mao and Communist China,
in a production by Peter Sellars. Baritone James Maddalena
stars as Nixon. La Bohème returns with a new cast of
bohemians including Piotr Beczala, Ramón Vargas, Maija
Kovalevska, and Peter Mattei. Plácido Domingo and Susan
Graham reprise their starring roles in Gluck’s Iphigénie
en Tauride. And Renée Fleming and Lawrence Brownlee
reunite in Armida on the heels of its sold-out run in the
2009—2010 season.
Adams
NixoN iN ChiNA
New ProductioN

Feb 2, 5, 9, 12 mat, 15, 19

Puccini
LA BohèMe
Feb 3, 7, 10, 17, 22, 25
Gluck
iPhiGéNie
eN TAuRiDe
Feb 12, 16, 21, 26 mat Mar 2, 5
Rossini
ARMiDA
Feb 18, 23, 26 Mar 1, 5 mat

Visit metopera.org for full casting information and ticket availability.

Synopsis

Peking, China, February 1972

Act I
scene 1 The airport outside Peking
scene 2 Chairman Mao’s study
scene 3 The Great Hall of the People

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 2:15 PM)

Act II
scene 1 Mrs. Nixon views China
scene 2 An evening at the Peking Opera

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 3:40 PM)

Act III
The last evening in Peking

Act I
The airfield outside Peking: it is a cold, clear, dry morning: Monday, February 21,
1972. Contingents of army, navy, and air force circle the field and sing “The
Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points of Attention.” Premier Chou
En-lai, accompanied by a small group of officials, strolls onto the runway just
as the “Spirit of ’76” taxis into view. President Nixon disembarks. They shake
hands and the president sings of his excitement and his fears.

An hour later he is meeting with Chairman Mao. Mao’s conversational armory

contains philosophical apothegms, unexpected political observations, and
gnomic jokes, and everything he sings is amplified by his secretaries and the
premier. It is not easy for a Westerner to hold his own in such a dialogue.

After the audience with Mao, everyone at the first evening’s banquet is euphoric.
The president and Mrs. Nixon manage to exchange a few words before Premier
Chou rises to make the first of the evening’s toasts, a tribute to patriotic fraternity.
The president replies, toasting the Chinese people and the hope of peace. The
toasts continue, with less formality, as the night goes on.

Act II
Snow has fallen during the night. In the morning, Mrs. Nixon is ushered onstage
by her party of guides and journalists. She explains a little of what it feels like for

31
 Synopsis CONTINUED

a woman like her to be First Lady, and accepts a glass elephant from the workers
at the Peking Glass Factory. She visits the Evergreen People’s Commune and
the Summer Palace, where she pauses in the Gate of Longevity and Goodwill to
sing, “This is prophetic!” Then, on to the Ming Tombs before sunset.

In the evening, the Nixons attend a performance of The Red Detachment

of Women, a revolutionary ballet devised by Mao’s wife, Chiang Ch’ing. The
ballet entwines ideological rectitude with Hollywood-style emotion. The Nixons
respond to the latter; they are drawn to the downtrodden peasant girl—in fact,
they are drawn into the action on the side of simple virtue. This was not precisely
what Chiang Ch’ing had in mind. She sings, “I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung,”
ending with full choral backing.

Act III
The last evening in Peking. The pomp and public displays of the presidential
visit are over, and the main players all return to the solitude of their bedrooms.
The talk turns to memories of the past. Mao and his wife dance, and the Nixons
recall the early days of their marriage during the Second World War, when he
was stationed as a naval commander in the Pacific. Chou concludes the opera
with the question of whether anything they did was good.

Adapted from a synopsis by Alice Goodman

32 Visit metopera.org
In Focus

John Adams

Nixon in China
Premiere: Houston Grand Opera, 1987
One of the most significant music theater works to emerge in recent decades,
Nixon in China is both an invocation of a specific historic event (Richard Nixon’s
visit to China in February of 1972) and a wide-ranging exploration of the ideas
and currents surrounding it. The opera’s scenes are based on significant moments
of that summit, with the key political figures as the lead characters: President
Nixon, Mrs. Nixon, and Henry Kissinger for the Americans; Chairman Mao Tse-
tung, his wife Chiang Ch’ing, and Premier Chou En-Lai for the Chinese. Alice
Goodman’s libretto shifts effortlessly among official pronouncements, realistic
dialogue, and inner soliloquies, giving the characters the opportunity to reveal
feelings, impressions, and emotions that were not apparent in the headlines of
the day. Indeed, instead of seeking to reduce events to their barest facts, Nixon
in China looks at the humanity within history, using the techniques of opera to
say what television news does not.

The Creators
John Adams (b. 1947) is among the most celebrated composers active today.
His works span a number of genres, including large-scale orchestral works and
film scores. Nixon in China is one of a number of Adams’s works that take their
themes from the contemporary historical experience. The Death of Klinghoffer
(1991) is about Americans caught up in a terrorist event in the Middle East;
Doctor Atomic explores the collision of science and morality and the creation of
the first atomic bomb; and On the Transmigration of Souls (composed for the
New York Philharmonic) commemorates the events of September 11, 2001. The
American poet Alice Goodman (b. 1958) also wrote the libretto to The Death of
Klinghoffer. She is currently an Anglican priest serving as the chaplain of Trinity
College, Cambridge. Director Peter Sellars (b. 1957) is noted in the international
theater and opera scene for innovative stagings of classic and contemporary
pieces.

The Setting
The opera takes place at various locales in Beijing, China, in February 1972. The
settings include public spaces (the airport, the Great Hall of the People, various
stops on Mrs. Nixon’s tour of the city) and private ones (Mao’s study, the various
bedrooms of the lead characters in the reflective final act).

33
 In Focus CONTINUED

The Music
Much of Adams’s score is built around complex and driving rhythms, yet the
musical texture is fluid and malleable. Melodic expression is juxtaposed with
distinct brass exclamations that recall big band music of the 1940s. The orchestra
includes four saxophones, two pianos, and a synthesizer. Unusual for a late-20th
century score, there is only one percussionist. The vocal lines at times reflect
spoken conversation, while at other times they can be free and lyrical, as in Pat
Nixon’s Act II aria “This is prophetic.” Several of the solos are direct descendants
of 19th-century Italian opera archetypes: Chiang Ch’ing’s bravura aria at the end
of Act II (“I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung”), for example, contains coloratura
runs up to a high D—a “showpiece” aria for a character whose capacity for
self-dramatization (as a former actress) was an important facet of her personality.
The dramatic motivation of the music is nowhere more evident than in the
Act III ensemble, in which the leading characters reflect on the significance (and
lack thereof) of the events that have just passed. The complex harmonies of this
ensemble encapsulate the idea of something eluding grasp.

Nixon in China at the Met

This production marks the opera’s Met premiere.

34 Visit metopera.org
Program Note

E
xamples of major historical and political figures that have fired composers’
imaginations inhabit a wide spectrum of the operatic repertoire. They
are easy to find, from Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Mussorgsky’s Boris
Godunov to Don Carlo, in which Verdi transforms King Philip II of Spain into a
character of Shakespearean dimension.
Yet when Nixon in China premiered at Houston Grand Opera almost a
quarter-century ago, it set an influential precedent: Not only did the opera
focus on a moment within living memory, but it presented the history of our
own time as it was being self-consciously made. President Richard Nixon’s trip
to meet with Chairman Mao Tse-tung, undertaken at the height of the Cold
War, unfolded as an archetypal media event. And, as composer John Adams
observes, opera itself “is a media event—only the media are the orchestra and
the voice and what goes on onstage.” Nixon in China, in a sense, represents “a
media event about a media event.”
This path-breaking work revealed a mother lode of operatic potential hidden
beneath the familiar headlines. The nature of opera, with its blend of artistic
disciplines, proves uniquely well-suited to the structure underlying Nixon in
China as it modulates back and forth between grandly thrilling spectacle and
introspective doubt. In the process, the creators of Nixon helped usher in a
rebirth of American opera over the last two decades by successfully balancing a
contemporary sensibility with the musical and dramatic traditions of the genre.
Adams himself was initially resistant to the idea that a young director named
Peter Sellars suggested to him when they met for the first time in 1983. Sellars,
for that matter, could hardly have foreseen that his proposal for a theatrical
adaptation of the iconic Sino-American state visit would launch one of the most
significant operatic careers of our time. To date, Adams and Sellars’s artistically
productive partnership has continued through all six of the composer’s works
for the stage.
Adams’s skepticism anticipated a common early critical reaction, which
found it difficult to perceive anything beyond a politically correct cartoon within
a scenario featuring Nixon as an operatic protagonist. Yet Adams came to
realize that what Sellars had in mind touched on a defining moment of American
identity—one with mythological resonance for contemporary audiences. A
similar process of initial hesitation followed by a conviction of artistic potential
and an urgent desire to realize it in music would be repeated during the genesis
of the 2005 opera Doctor Atomic—the first work by Adams to appear at the
Metropolitan Opera when it was staged here in 2008.
In the case of Nixon in China, which was written between 1985 and 1987,
many of the risks associated with the creation of a first opera ended up serving
as artistic advantages. The innovative spirit that Adams, Sellars, librettist Alice
Goodman, and choreographer Mark Morris brought to their collaboration left

Ins1
 Program Note CONTINUED

no room for lazy or formulaic solutions to the tangle of dramaturgical puzzles

that began to emerge with the evolving operatic scenario. This quartet of
strong-willed artists approached the material from distinctive and sometimes
clashing perspectives. The resulting tension is reflected in Nixon’s complex
counterpoint of mood and ambiguous emotional dynamic. Throughout the
opera, the disparity between the calculated image and the real thing—between
the public role-playing of those who hold power and their private selves—is a
fulcrum that tips variously from humor to pathos, satire to idealism, propaganda
to self-revealing eloquence.
The central action of the opera revolves around the five-day visit of the
presidential entourage. But Goodman combined her voracious research into
American and Chinese sources—“relentlessly ignoring everything published
after 1972 [the year of the visit] except for the Nixon and Kissinger memoirs,” as
she noted—with a poet’s instinct for epiphany, discovering resonant moments
of reflection to interpolate within the official narrative. Her subtle couplets, many
using slant rhyme (“one/moon,” “grace/grass”), prove endlessly versatile as
she tunes them to express oracular pithiness, philosophical paradox, or elegiac
confession.
Sellars, meanwhile, encouraged Adams and Goodman to embed a rich store
of allusions to operatic tradition in their writing. These operate as significant
structural features. They range from the expectant chorus at the opening (a
signature found in Adams’s subsequent operas), Nixon’s heroic entrance aria,
and the competing toasts of the first act to the character-defining arias of Pat
Nixon and Madame Mao and the ballet “entertainment” in which the second
act culminates: the popular Communist agit-prop piece The Red Detachment
of Women, here reworked by Mark Morris and functioning as a “mousetrap”
device à la Hamlet, in which the division between spectators and performers
breaks down.
But the ambitions of Nixon’s creators extend even further in the enigmatic
third act, which takes place behind the scenes and beyond the illusory media
glare. Sellars, who had begun staging his famous interpretations of the Mozart–
Da Ponte trilogy by this time, was fascinated by the new operatic dimension
Mozart had revealed through his elaboration of the ensemble. Here, in the final
act of Nixon, the tone and tempo shift altogether to take on the character of a
moody nocturne in which Eros mixes with memory and regret. As the characters
disclose elements of their private vulnerabilities behind the public guise, the
structure of the ensemble serves as a unifying device for the opera’s interwoven
perspectives. “We wanted to reinvent the ensemble on our terms,” remarks
Sellars, “and find the basis of equality and exchange.”
Adams also alludes to particular vocal types and to specific operatic tropes
in his score. Both Nixon and Chou En-lai can evoke the gravitas of Verdi’s

Ins2
 baritones, while Kissinger’s is a quintessentially buffo role. Adams reserves
another kind of irony for Mao Tse-tung, whose heldentenor posturing is pinned
to an exaggeratedly high tessitura. In Act II, where the women take center stage
after the male-dominated first act, Adams plays up the contrast between Pat’s
poignant lyric soprano and the manic, stratospheric coloratura of Chiang Ch’ing.
Yet the vocal stereotypes, too, serve as masks for these characters. In the third
act, for example, Chiang Ch’ing’s pose as a power-hungry Queen of the Night
gives way to wistful regret.
Elements of operatic “high art”—from indirect references to the great
choruses of Verdi or Mussorgsky to wry, direct quotes from Wagner and
Strauss—mix promiscuously with vernacular idioms. In fact, recalls Adams, his
initial musical image for Nixon himself was the big band music he associated
with his parents’ generation: an archetypal American sound whose influence is
also heard in the prominence given by the scoring to saxophones and woodwind
and brass combinations. At the same time, Adams harnesses the primal energy
of rock to add muscle and drive to such passages as the landing of Air Force
One. And the composer’s years of tenure as composer-in-residence in the early
1980s with the San Francisco Symphony honed both his extraordinary skills as an
orchestral colorist and his mastery of large-scale musical architecture. All come
into play to generate the rich musical substance of Nixon in China.
For all his encyclopedic knowledge and scope of reference, though, Adams
generates a thoroughly innovative, vital score that is identifiably his own
sound. Even his brand of Minimalism is distinctive, adapting the technique and
vocabulary of the style (which he had particularly admired in Steve Reich and
the Philip Glass of Satyagraha) to his own ends. Minimalism as refracted by
Adams uses exciting pulsation and powerful harmonic momentum to reinforce
Nixon’s dramatic rhythms. And as the opera progresses toward its ambiguous
denouement, Adams takes stock of his own increasingly nuanced musical profile.
Michael Steinberg, one of the most astute commentators on Adams, observed
that Nixon in China “recapitulates [his] development as a composer in that each
of its scenes brings an expansion of resources and possibilities”—becoming
“more richly inventive in melody, freer in rhythm, more subtle in harmony, more
fanciful in texture.” —Thomas May

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The Cast and Creative Team

John Adams
composer /conductor (worcester , massachusetts)

this season Nixon in China for his Met conducting debut, as well as conducting engagements
with the San Francisco Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony,
New World Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
met works Composer of Doctor Atomic (debut, 2008).
career highlights Composer, conductor, and writer, he occupies a unique position in the
world of classical music. His groundbreaking operatic works Nixon in China and The
Death of Klinghoffer have been produced worldwide and have been followed more
recently by Doctor Atomic and A Flowering Tree. His other theatrical and symphonic
works include Harmonium, Grand Pianola Music, Harmonielehre, and El Dorado, all
created for and premiered by the San Francisco Symphony; the 1995 song-play I Was
Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky; a multilingual retelling of the nativity story,
El Niño, in 2000; On the Transmigration of Souls in 2002; Dharma at Big Sur for electronic
violin and orchestra in 2003; My Father Knew Charles Ives; and his most recent orchestral
work, City Noir, which received its premiere in 2009 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His
autobiography, Hallelujah Junction, was published in 2008.

Peter Sellars
director (pittsburgh, pennsylvania )

this season Nixon in China for his debut at the Met, Handel’s Hercules for the Lyric Opera
of Chicago, Vivaldi’s Griselda for the Santa Fe Opera, and a collaboration with novelist
Toni Morrison and Malian singer and composer Rokia Traore on a new work for the Vienna
Festival.
career highlights Recent projects include a staging of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and
Symphony of Psalms for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, later seen at the Sydney Festival;
Shakespeare’s Othello in Vienna, Bochum, and New York; and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in Berlin and Salzburg. He has staged operas at
the Netherlands Opera, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, and San Francisco Opera, and
has created many new works with John Adams, including Nixon in China, The Death
of Klinghoffer, El Niño, Doctor Atomic, and A Flowering Tree. He has led several major
arts festivals, including the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals, the 2002 Adelaide Arts
Festival, and the 2003 Venice Biennale International Festival of Theater.

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 The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

Adrianne Lobel
set designer (brooklyn, new york )

this season Nixon in China at the Met.

met production Picker’s An American Tragedy (debut, 2005).
career highlights Work with John Adams and Peter Sellars includes world premiere
productions of Doctor Atomic (San Francisco Opera) and Nixon in China (Houston Grand
Opera). Work with Sellars includes The Rake’s Progress (Paris’s Châtelet), The Magic
Flute (Glyndebourne Festival), Così fan tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro (New York’s Pepsico
Summerfare), and The Mikado (Lyric Opera of Chicago). Work with choreographer Mark
Morris includes L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato; The Hard Nut; Orfeo ed Euridice;
Platée; and King Arthur. Other noteworthy projects include Street Scene (Houston Grand
Opera), Lady in the Dark (London’s National Theater), Swan Lake (Pennsylvania Ballet), and
An American in Paris (New York City Ballet). Broadway credits include Passion, The Diary
of Anne Frank, On the Town, and A Year with Frog and Toad. She is currently developing a
new opera for children with composer Tobias Picker and author Jack Prelutsky.

Dunya Ramicova
costume designer (bratislava , slovakia )

this season Nixon in China at the Met.

met productions Glass’s The Voyage (debut, 1992), Picker’s An American Tragedy, and
Verdi’s I Lombardi.
career highlights She has designed costumes for opera and theater companies in
the United States and Europe, and her most recent work includes the Los Angeles
Philharmonic production of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (also seen at the Sydney Festival)
and Doctor Atomic for the San Francisco Opera. She is a longtime collaborator of director
Peter Sellars; their work together includes world premiere productions of Adams’s Nixon
in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and El Niño, the Mozart/DaPonte cycle, The Magic
Flute, Tannhäuser, Handel’s Theodora, Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise, Aeschylus’s
The Persians, Sophocles’s Ajax, and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. She is a
professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts at the University of
California in Merced.

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 James F. Ingalls
lighting designer (hartford, connecticut)

this season Nixon in China, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Orfeo ed Euridice, and Wozzeck
at the Met; Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet at San Francisco’s American Conservatory
Theatre; Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments in London, Brussels, and Rome; The Nutcracker for San
Francisco Ballet; and The Hard Nut for the Mark Morris Dance Group.
met productions An American Tragedy, Salome, Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens, War and
Peace, The Gambler, and Wozzeck (debut, 1997).
career highlights Recent work includes A Parallelogram and Endgame for Chicago’s
Steppenwolf Theatre, Onegin for the National Ballet of Canada, Pacific for Washington
Ballet, Cantata Criolla for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Brief Encounters for the Paul
Taylor Dance Company, Don Quixote for the Dutch National Ballet, and Oedipus Rex and
Symphony of Psalms for the 2010 Sydney Festival. He also designed lighting for the world
premieres of Adams’s Doctor Atomic, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Nixon in China, and
Saariaho’s Adriana Mater and L’Amour de Loin. He often collaborates with Melanie Rios
Glaser and The Wooden Floor dancers in Santa Ana, California.

Mark Morris
choreographer (seattle, washington)

this season Nixon in China and Orfeo ed Euridice at the Met (director and choreographer).
met production Orfeo ed Euridice (debut, 2006).
career highlights He formed Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980, was director of dance at
Brussels’s La Monnaie from 1988 to 1991, founded White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail
Baryshnikov in 1990, established MMDG Music Ensemble in 1996, and founded Brooklyn’s
Mark Morris Dance Center in 2001. Ballet commissions include works for American Ballet
Theatre, Boston Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, English National Ballet, London’s Royal
Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet, among others. Opera credits include Salome, Orphée
et Euridice and Die Fledermaus (Seattle Opera); Nixon in China (Houston Grand Opera);
The Death of Klinghoffer, Dido and Aeneas, and Le Nozze di Figaro (La Monnaie); Platée
(Covent Garden); and Four Saints in Three Acts and King Arthur (English National Opera).

37
 The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

Mark Grey
sound designer (vienna , austria )

this season Nixon in China at the Met.

met production Doctor Atomic (debut, 2008).
career highlights Sound designer and artistic collaborator for the 2002 premiere of
Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.
Performances include works at Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert
Hall and Barbican Centre, Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, and Amsterdam’s
Concertgebouw. He designed the sound for the world premiere of Doctor Atomic at the
San Francisco Opera in 2005 with subsequent productions in Amsterdam and Chicago. In
2008 he returned to San Francisco Opera for Stewart Wallace’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter
and made his debut at English National Opera with Doctor Atomic. His works for Paris’s
Theatre du Châtelet include Adams’s El Niño and Peter Eötvös’s Angels in America. He
made his Carnegie Hall debut as a composer in 2003. Recent works for solo ensemble
or orchestra include commissions for Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Master
Chorale, Carnegie Hall, Kronos Quartet, Leila Josefowicz, Jennifer Koh, Colorado Music
Festival, Paul Dresher Ensemble, the California EARUnit, and Joan Jeanrenaud (former
Kronos cellist). He has also worked with Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley.

Janis Kelly
soprano (glasgow, scotland)

this season Pat Nixon in Nixon in China for her Met debut, Mademoiselle Jouvenot in
Adriana Lecouvreur and Sarah in James MacMillan’s Clemency at Covent Garden, and the
Foreign Princess in Rusalka at Grange Park.
career highlights Recent performances include Régine Saint Laurent in the 2009 world
premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s Prima Donna in Manchester (and in London and Toronto),
Lania in the 2009 world premiere of David Sawer’s Skin Deep with Opera North (and in
Leeds and Bregenz), the Foreign Princess in Rusalka at Grange Park, Pat Nixon in Athens,
and Mrs. Naidoo in Glass’s Satyagraha with English National Opera. Appearances at
English National Opera include Pat Nixon, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, the title
role of Handel’s Alcina, Romilda in Handel’s Xerxes, and Rose in Weill’s Street Scene; and
at Opera North she has sung Violetta in La Traviata, Magda in La Rondine, the Marschallin
in Der Rosenkavalier, and Musetta in La Bohème. Additional engagements include Iris in

38
Semele at Aix-en-Provence, Flanders Opera, and English National Opera; the title role in
Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress at Grange Park; and Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus with the
Scottish Opera.

Kathleen Kim
soprano (seoul , korea )

this season Chiang Ch’ing in Nixon in China and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos at the
Met, the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte for her debut with Munich’s Bavarian State
Opera, Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Melissa in Handel’s
Amadigi di Gaula with Central City Opera, and Poppea in Agrippina with Boston Lyric
Opera.
met appearances Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte,
Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro (debut, 2007), and Oscar.
career highlights She recently appeared as Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail for
her debut with the Minnesota Opera, Marie in La Fille du Régiment at the Bilbao Opera,
the Queen of the Night with Atlanta Opera and Mexico’s Xalapa Symphony Orchestra,
Chiang Ch’ing for Chicago Opera Theatre, and a Priestess in Iphigénie en Tauride with
Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Russell Braun
baritone (frankfurt, germany)

this season Chou En-lai in Nixon in China and Olivier in Capriccio at the Met, Lescaut in
Manon on tour in Japan with London’s Royal Opera (Covent Garden), and Mercutio in
Roméo et Juliette at La Scala.
met appearances Silvio in Pagliacci, Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Dr. Falke in Die
Fledermaus (debut, 1995), and Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette.
career highlights Recent performances include the Traveller in Death in Venice at Vienna’s
Theater an der Wien, Valentin in Faust at Covent Garden, Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande
at La Scala, Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride with the Paris Opera, the title role of Eugene
Onegin with the San Francisco Opera, and the title role of Billy Budd, Prince Andrei in War
and Peace, and Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor with the Canadian Opera Company.

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 The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

Robert Brubaker
tenor (mannheim, pennsylvania )

this season Mao Tse-tung in Nixon in China at the Met, Herod in Salome in Trieste, Loge in
Das Rheingold in Seville, Don Ygnacio in Eötvös’s Love and Other Demons in Strasbourg,
and the Captain in Wozzeck with the Santa Fe Opera.
met appearances Mime in Siegfried, Mephistopheles in Busoni’s Doktor Faust, Zorn in Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg (debut, 1993), Bob Boles in Peter Grimes, Albert Gregor in
The Makropulos Case, Golitsin in Khovanshchina, Tichon in Kaťá Kabanová, Red Whiskers
in Billy Budd, and Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos.
career highlights Recent performances include the Emperor in Die Frau ohne Schatten with
°
the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Laca in Jenufa with English National Opera, and Boris in Kaťá
Kabanová at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien. He has also sung the title role of Zemlinsky’s
Der König Kandaules at the Salzburg Festival, Count Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace
with the Paris Opera, the Tenor/Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos at Covent Garden, and
Aegisth in Elektra and Herod at La Scala.

Richard Paul Fink

bass - baritone (massillon, ohio)

this season Henry Kissinger in Nixon in China and Alberich in Das Rheingold at the Met
and the title role of Wozzeck with the Santa Fe Opera.
met appearances Edward Teller in Doctor Atomic, Alberich in Wagner’s Ring cycle,
Telramund in Lohengrin (debut, 1998), Shaklovity in Khovanshchina, George Wilson in the
world premiere of Harbison’s The Great Gatsby, Klingsor in Parsifal, and Don Pizarro in
Fidelio.
career highlights Recent performances include the Water Gnome in Rusalka with the
Canadian Opera Company and Amonasro in Aida and Alberich with the Seattle Opera. He
has also sung Alberich in Dallas, Toronto, and Berlin; Edward Teller in the world premiere
of Doctor Atomic at San Francisco Opera, as well as with the Netherlands Opera and Lyric
Opera of Chicago; Klingsor in Berlin, Salzburg, Paris, and Houston; and Kurwenal in Tristan
und Isolde at the Welsh National Opera.

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 James Maddalena
baritone (lynn, massachusetts)

this season Richard Nixon in Nixon in China for his debut at the Met, Simon Powers in
the world premiere of Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers in Monte Carlo (followed
by performances in Boston and Chicago), and the Marquis de la Force in Dialogues des
Carmélites with the Pittsburgh Opera.
career highlights He sang Richard Nixon in the world premiere of Nixon in China at
the Houston Grand Opera and has since repeated the role at the Netherlands Opera,
Edinburgh Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Washington National Opera, Frankfurt
Opera, Australia’s Adelaide Festival, and Paris’s Châtelet. He also created the Captain in
Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer at Brussels’s La Monnaie and Jack Hubbard in Doctor
Atomic at the San Francisco Opera. A frequent collaborator with director Peter Sellars, he
has appeared in Sellars’s stagings of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas (as the Count in Le Nozze
di Figaro and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte). Recent performances include Art Kamen in the
world premiere of Wallace’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter at the San Francisco Opera and
Hobson in the world premiere of Carlson’s The Midnight Angel with the St. Louis Opera.

Visit metopera.org 41
Facilities and Services
THE ARNOLD AND MARIE SCHWARTZ GALLERY MET
Art gallery located in the South Lobby featuring leading artists. Open Monday through Friday,
6pm through last intermission; Saturday, noon through last intermission of evening performances.
ASSISTIVE LISTENING SYSTEM
Wireless headsets that work with the Sennheiser Infrared Listening System to amplify sound are available
in the South Check Room (Concourse level) before performances. Major credit card or driver’s license
required for deposit.
BINOCULARS
For rent at South Check Room, Concourse level.
BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED
Large print programs are available free of charge from the ushers. Braille synopses of many operas are
available free of charge. Please contact an usher. Affordable tickets for no-view score desk seats may be
purchased by calling the Metropolitan Opera Guild at 212-769-7028.
BOX OFFICE
Monday–Saturday, 10am–8pm; Sunday, noon–6pm. The Box Office closes at 8pm on non-performance
evenings or on evenings with no intermission. Box Office Information: 212-362-6000.
CHECK ROOM
On Concourse level (Founders Hall).
FIRST AID ­­­
Doctor in attendance during performances; contact an usher for assistance.
LECTURE SERIES
Opera-related courses, pre-performance lectures, master classes, and more are held throughout the
Met performance season at the Opera Learning Center. For tickets and information, call 212-769-7028.
LOST AND FOUND
Security office at Stage Door. Monday–Friday, 2pm–4pm; 212-799-3100, ext. 2499.
MET OPERA SHOP
The Met Opera Shop is adjacent to the North Box Office, 212-580-4090. Open Monday–Saturday,
10am–final intermission; Sunday, noon–6pm.
PUBLIC TELEPHONES
Telephones with volume controls and TTY Public Telephone located in Founders Hall on the Concourse
level.­­
RESTAURANT AND REFRESHMENT FACILITIES
The Grand Tier Restaurant at the Metropolitan Opera features creative contemporary American cuisine,
and the Revlon Bar offers panini, crostini, and a full service bar. Both are now open two hours prior
to the Metropolitan Opera curtain time to any Lincoln Center ticket holder for pre-curtain dining.
Pre-ordered intermission dining is also available for Metropolitan Opera ticket holders. For reservations
please call 212-799-3400.
RESTROOMS
Wheelchair-accessible restrooms are located on the Dress Circle, Grand Tier, Parterre, and Founders Hall
levels.
SEAT CUSHIONS
Available in the South Check Room. Major credit card or driver’s license required for deposit.
SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS
For information contact the Metropolitan Opera Guild Education Department, 212-769-7022.
SCORE READING
Tickets for score desk seats in the Family Circle boxes may be purchased by calling the Metropolitan
Opera Guild at 212-769-7028. These no-view seats provide an affordable way for music students to study
an opera’s score during a live performance.
TOUR GUIDE SERVICE
Backstage tours of the Opera House are held during the Met performance season on most weekdays at
3:30pm and most Sundays at 10:30am and 1:30pm. For tickets and information, call 212-769-7020. Tours
of Lincoln Center daily; call 212-875-5351 for availability.
WEBSITE
www.metopera.org
WHEELCHAIR ACCOMMODATIONS
Telephone 212-799-3100, ext. 2204. Wheelchair entrance at Concourse level.

The exits indicated by a red light and the sign nearest the seat The photographing or sound recording of any performance, or
you occupy are the shortest routes to the street. In the event of the possession of any device for such photographing or sound
fire or other emergency, please do not run—walk to that exit. recording inside this theater, without the written permission
of the management, is prohibited by law. Offenders may be
In compliance with New York City Department of Health ejected and liable for damages and other lawful remedies.
regulations, smoking is prohibited in all areas of this theater.
Patrons with cellular telephones, alarm watches, and/or
Patrons are reminded that in deference to the performing artists electronic paging systems are requested to turn them off prior
and the seated audience, those who leave the auditorium during to entering the auditorium.
the performance will not be readmitted while the performance
is in progress.

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