Synopsis

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Act I

On an airfield outside of Peking, a contingent of the Chinese army, navy and air force sings a 1930s Red Army song. “The Spirit of ‘76” taxies and lands. The Nixons and Henry Kissinger are greeted by Premier Chou En-lai. Richard Nixon is introduced to various Chinese officials by Premier Chou.

An hour later, Nixon, Kissinger and Premier Chou visit Chairman Mao's study. While Nixon attempts to set forth a simplistic vision of peace between America and China, Mao wishes to discuss philosophy and speaks in riddles. The elderly Mao is soon worn out, and Nixon and Kissinger depart with Premier Chou.

Following the audience with Chairman Mao, a great feast for the American delegation is held in the Great Hall of the People. Premier Chou rises to make the first of the evening’s toasts, a tribute to patriotic fraternity. The President responds in kind, congratulating the Chinese for their hospitality and proposes a toast in the name of peace.

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Act II

Mrs. Nixon is ushered by a party of guides and journalists to various showcases of contemporary Chinese life—a glass factory, a health centre, a pig farm and a primary school. Her Chinese guides hint darkly of the repressive side of Chinese life that lies underneath the façade shown to foreign dignitaries. She expresses her hopes for a peaceful future of modesty and good neighbourliness, a future based on the values of the American heartland.

That evening, the Nixons attend a performance of “The Red Detachment of Women,” a revolutionary ballet devised by Mao’s wife, Chiang Ch’ing. The piece is a simplistic display of politicised music-theatre, with the oppressed peasants of a tropical island saved from their brutal landlord by heroic women of the Red Army. The Nixons empathize with the downtrodden peasants; Kissinger sides with the brutal landlord while Madam Mao's desire to save the peasants at all costs leads her to become more brutal than the landlord was in the first place.

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Act III

On the Americans' final night in Peking, the main characters relive the paths that have brought them to this place and this moment. The Maos and the Nixons look back to the struggles of their early years. Only Chou En-lai looks deeper, asking "how much of what we did was good?" before casting doubts aside and wearily carrying on with his work.

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Robert Orth as Richard Nixon in the Canadian Opera Company production of Nixon in China. Photo: Michael Cooper © 2011