Review: In San Francisco Opera’s superlative ‘Nixon in China,’ it’s the John Adams score that towers above all else

It’s been 40 years since President Richard M. Nixon arrived on Air Force One in Beijing for a weeklong visit with Mao Zedong that changed global politics. It’s been 25 years since John Adams’ opera “Nixon in China” (inspired by the 1972 journey) debuted at Houston Grand Opera — and now, finally, it has landed at San Francisco Opera with a production that delivers in so many ways. Friday’s opening performance dazzled and entertained, and it made you think about the whole blasted enterprise.

Thanks to computer-generated graphics, we get to watch the presidential jet descend through the clouds — Adams’ accompanying arpeggios form their own musical clouds, vaporous and drizzly — and seemingly land on stage at the War Memorial Opera House. Out steps the president, baritone Brian Mulligan, who shakes the hand of Premier Chou En-lai (baritone Chen-Ye Yuan), then turns toward the cameras, singing “News! News! News!” — staccato bursts that capture the cadence of Nixon’s speech, as the president exalts his role in the history-making moment.

There are some excellent performances in this production, directed by Michael Cavanagh, which originated two years ago with Vancouver Opera.

Mulligan’s is a good one, as he shakes his jowls and sings with a clear, plummy voice — but doesn’t quite penetrate the hammy sincerity and dark smarts of the ex-president. For personality and power, gold medals go to the Mao family: to tenor Simon O’Neill as the aging chairman — his voice piercing, his nerve endings all fired up with revolutionary zeal — and to soprano Hye Jung Lee as Chiang Ch’ing (Madame Mao), a coloratura fury, scary with erotic violence. Her stratospherically pitch-perfect aria “I Am the Wife of Chairman Mao” will be remembered.

So will soprano Maria Kanyova’s performance as Pat Nixon. Her voice and characterization are fresh-blooming; she makes one believe in the heartland goodness of the first lady, as portrayed by librettist Alice Goodman.

But it is the score by Adams — who lives in Berkeley and has waited a long time for this production of his most celebrated opera — that towers over all of it. For 2 1/2 hours, the score is multigeared, multicolored, transforming like a kaleidoscopic engine. It spins through Philip Glass-inspired minimalism and touches on big band swing, Glenn Miller serenades, grinding rhythm and blues and Beethovenian weather. Like a jazz musician, Adams is always quoting and alluding: You hear traces of Hoagy Carmichael, of Duke Ellington.

Conducted by Lawrence Renes, the orchestra played most of the score with precision and clout; those qualities were missing in the pit (and in the chorus) for stretches of the second act’s ballet scene. Otherwise, the orchestra secured the dramatic underpinnings, which proceeds from literal events to hallucination, then descends into poetic nightmare. The bold sets (by Erhard Rom) and powerful videography (by Sean Nieuwenhuis) mirror and enhance the tale as it moves from history to something like myth.

Friday’s first act was flawless. Who would imagine a debate over politics and philosophy — with Mao, Chou, Nixon and Henry Kissinger locking heads — could be so suspenseful? The banquet-scene toast numbers by Yuan (as Chou) and Mulligan (as Nixon) were brimming with feeling, and the act ended with full-tilt boogie dancing by the East-West guests, including Pat and the president atop dining tables, giddy over their seeming success.

That vision tarnishes in the second act, when Kanyova (as Pat) sings eloquently of simple virtues — and is so naively out of sync with her hosts. She is horrified by the violence in the Chinese ballet that follows. This is the famous “The Red Detachment of Women,” splendidly choreographed by Wen Wei Wang, who danced to the original ballet during the Cultural Revolution, when the real Madame Mao made it a model of revolutionary art. It contains some of Adams’ most delightful and madcap music — and the opera’s biggest blunder, as Kissinger is hallucinated into the ballet as a rapist-clown.

Kissinger’s role, ably enough sung by bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi, remains a puzzlement: Why is he alone held up to derision? And the third act, too, still puzzles this fan of “Nixon in China.” Suddenly, the principals fizzle into a miasma of self-doubt and nihilism. Mao and Chou wonder if their youth as revolutionaries was a waste. Nixon is racked with guilt over an episode from his service in World War II. It all feels long-winded and monochrome; hope has vanished, history’s meaning is up for grabs — and, as I said at the beginning, it got me thinking.

Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-506.