At the end of the opera Chou En-lai muses, “How much of what we did was good?” The same can be asked about the VO’s historic sojourn into contemporary opera. Like Nixon’s visit to Beijing, I think this is a turning point of sorts. VO has proved that we can do contemporary opera spectacularly well: we have local forces in the chorus and in the pit who can cope with a very demanding score; and we seem to have a management team that can think well beyond the safety zone of the tried and true.

So good that Vancouver Sun's David Gordon Duke had to watch Nixon in China again. Click here to read more.