Composer John Adams will conduct his 1987 piece, Nixon in China at UCA Feb 13

Composer John Adams will conduct the Metropolitan Opera debut of his 1987 piece, Nixon in China, which will be a part of the 2010-11 season of Captured Live from the Met @ UCA.
 
Adams will conduct his own work during the opera, which will be aired in high definition at the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 13.
 
Nixon in China will be the sixth of 10 high definition transmissions in the series sponsored by UCA’s College of Fine Arts and Communication.
 
This production, based on the original Houston Grand Opera production, is by Peter Sellars and was created by the English National Opera. It recalls President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit with Mao Tse-tung in communist China.
 
“All of my operas have dealt on deep psychological levels with our American mythology,” Adams said, according to www.metoperafamily.org. “The meeting of Nixon and Mao is a mythological moment in world history, particularly American history.”
 
Alice Goodman provides the libretto. Baritone James Maddalena reprises his performance from the world premiere in the role of Nixon, with Janis Kelly as Pat Nixon, Robert Brubaker as Mao, Kathleen Kim as Mao’s wife Chiang Ch’ing and Richard Paul Fink as Henry Kissinger.
 
Set design is by Adrianne Lobel, with costumes by Dunya Ramicova, lighting by James F. Ingalls, choreography by Mark Morris and sound by Mark Grey.
 
According to the Web site, the production is “an exploration of the human truths beyond the headlines surrounding” Nixon’s trip. Running time is four hours; the Web site includes a warning that some adult content may not be appropriate for young children.
 
Approximately 200 seats are available for each performance at UCA. Tickets are $15 for the public and $5 for students with valid I.D.
 
The Met series will continue Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride on Feb. 27; Bartlett Sher’s new production of Rossini’s Le Comte Ory on April 10; Capriccio on April 25; and Verdi’s Il Trovatore on May 1.
 
This is the fifth season of the Met’s series, which came to UCA in 2008. The transmissions are now shown in 1,500 theaters in 46 countries. According to a release from the Met, a record number of more than 2.4 million tickets were sold last season.
 
To order tickets, call UCA Ticket Central at (501) 450-3265 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday or visit www.uca.edu/tickets.
 
The series is made possible by UCA’s arts fee.
 
For more information, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293, e-mail jdlooney@uca.edu or visit www.uca.edu/cfac or www.metopera.org.