History is Our Mother (OT)

I went with a few people, including my brother and his partner who was celebrating a new job, to see the excellent Nixon in China last night at the English National Opera, I was fascinated by the historical context, which really I knew little about. I had no idea how important the visit was.

Now, unlike perhaps most listeners, I have a boss who was an aide to Kissinger in the Nixon White House, before he (my boss) was implicated in Watergate as one of the plumbers. [More about my boss's role here. If only I could have got him to the opera! But he recounted some of Kissinger's and Nixon's sayings, and in particular how he had first heard of Kissinger's earlier secret visit to meet with Chou Enlai.

Opera highlights:

• amazing replication of Nixon's capacity for phrase-making
• superb singing...
• ...making Alice Goodman's fine libretto almost entirely audible. Turns out she's an ordained Anglican clergyman and is married to the divine Geoffrey Hill, of whose poetry I'm a big fan.
• fantastic period recreation elements, duplicating photographs of the period, physical mannerisms, clothing, style, all things.

Some great lines:

"News, news, news, news, news -- has a... has a...has a... has a kind of mystery has a...has a... has a kind of mystery."

When Mao Zedong compliments Nixon on his book "Six Crises", Nixon says "He reads too much" - my boss says this is a true line. So also Chou Enlai's line when asked "What do you think of the French revolution?", "It is too soon to tell."

And most movingly:

"How much of what we did was good?" and the next line which is something like "And why is so little in our power to remedy?"

The interesting part for me, which really came alive both from opera and discussion, is Nixon's yearning for history, and how unable he was to confront it in reality.

It is so qualitatively different to learn and read, or even talk to witnesses, about history, than to make it, and make it knowingly. Oddly that describes my feelings, and (in the opera at least), Nixon's when confronted with China.

Note to self: obtain CD when it can be found at reasonable cost.