Stravinsky & Adams

Toasting Two Masters: Ten Choruses and a Wedding

by Thomas May Although John Adams celebrated his 70th birthday last month, 2017 still holds another major anniversary in store: it was three decades ago, in October 1987, that Houston Grand Opera staged his debut opera, Nixon in China. The premiere in the company’s brand-new Wortham Theater Center happened to coincide with a national convention of music critics — but even apart from that, Nixon had already aroused widespread attention because of its subject matter. In place of the myths of old on which so much opera had fed (Iphigénie en Tauride, Ariadne auf Naxos), here were well-known real-life characters dramatizing the contemporary experience of the Cold War in quasi-mythic, archetypal terms: Nixon in China indeed. It would actually take years (and a series of fine tunings of the score’s details) before Nixon attained its status as a contemporary classic. But in hindsight, that premiere 30 years ago didn’t just launch the stage career of one of our greatest living American artists. It also heralded and helped inspire a new creative flowering for the medium of opera itself — one that continues to grow increasingly vibrant among the youngest generation of composers (some of whom have been mentored by Adams). And the chorus has consistently served as one of Adams' most powerful tools whenever he writes for the stage. After a brief prelude of rising scales, for example, he sets Nixon’s opening scene — a cold, clear February morning at the airfield outside Beijing — with a masterfully paced chorus (“The people are the heroes now”), thereby establishing a pattern of powerful choral openings that is a signature of his stage works. It’s also worth recalling that Adams' very first major commission for a traditional “classical” institution, San Francisco Symphony, was a choral-symphonic work: Harmonium — setting texts by Toasting Two Masters: Ten Choruses and a Wedding John Donne and Emily Dickinson — whose premiere in 1981 led the eminent commentator Michael Steinberg to remark: “On this evening, John Adams became, unmistakably, a major figure on our musical landscape.” Adams has long since been ranked among today’s most vital and innovative figures at work in the concert hall and opera house alike. But he’s not as immediately identified as a “choral composer” per se — until you take a closer look at what he has actually written for the stage. “If you consider John’s operatic output, the chorus is often one of the most important elements in the story line,” says Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Artistic Director Grant Gershon. “This music should come to the fore whenever anybody in the future talks about choral music in the American tradition.” To that end, Gershon has been commissioned by the composer’s music publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, to curate and edit a new three-volume set of choruses from Adams' operas and oratorios. The accompanying piano transcriptions are being prepared by the Japanese pianist Chitose Okashiro. “The goal is to create versions of these iconic choral pieces that are more idiomatic for piano than the original piano reductions, which were written for rehearsal purposes only,” explains Gershon. “These new transcriptions will make Adams’ opera choruses more accessible for performance by choral ensembles throughout the world.” It was from the keyboard that Gershon in fact first engaged with the music of Adams. In 1990, when LA Opera first presented Nixon in China, the young Gershon played keyboards as part of the orchestral ensemble. His work in the pit led to an enduring professional relationship and friendship with Adams, who has entrusted the conductor with significant performances of his work ever since: Gershon led the world premiere of the 1995 theater work I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky and, among other works, has conducted key performances of The Gospel According to the Other Mary. Joined by Gloria Cheng, he also premiered Adams' two-piano piece Hallelujah Junction (whose title Adams used for his compulsively readable memoir published in 2008). Gershon is looking ahead to another major Adams milestone this fall, when he will conduct the world premiere of his newest opera, Girls of the Golden West, at San Francisco Opera.  

Archival Recording