The new production of Nixon in China, which opened recently at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, was a hyperactive orgy of live video, pop-cultural appropriation, and cartoonish irreverence, all seemingly directed by a six-year-old on a sugar bender who had just discovered the joys of yelling the f-word at full volume. It was undeniably terrible, but in a way that was impossible to take seriously. Although there were a handful of fine performances buried in the wreckage – Heidi Stober’s Pat Nixon was very good, as was Daniel Carter’s stylish navigation of the score’s many moods – the staging did everything it could to undermine its operatic text until all that remained was a vacuous anarchy bereft of purpose.
What made the evening baffling is that the staging – directed by Franziska Kronfoth and Julia Lwowski of performance group Hauen und…
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