Did I cite Operas Are Poetic? I did.

Houston Grand Opera premiered Adams' Nixon in China 24 years ago, now it's running at The Met with the composer conducting. The opera stands like bookends on my experience of contemporary American opera, and I can't help but compare HGO's recent production of Heggie's Dead Man Walking not only to Nixon, but to a more distant work like Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande.