Reception and Influence of a Postmodern opera: John Adam's Nixon in China, 1987-2011
Abstract
Reviews of these later performances indicate resurgence in popularity and a greater critical grasp of the work's fundamental dramatic and musical dynamic. In the intervening years since the work's premiere, the power negative feelings associated with its principle characters have dimmed in cultural memory, allowing for the overarching statement of the opera to be foremost in the audience's minds. Elements of the production first analyzed as politically naive, have been reexamined as insightful, if not prophetic.
This paper has been withdrawn.