Nixon in China

Only a handful of North American operas have managed to muscle their way into a classic repertory already crowded with European works; count Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Bernstein’s Candide, and Nixon in China, by John Adams, among them. Imbued with the kind of quirkiness that only opera (and, arguably, the Nixons) can provide, Adams’s music, along with the libretto by Alice Goodman, brought together satire and epic, parody and propaganda–and, not least, a serious examination of this momentous media event. 651-224-4222; www.mnopera.org