I thought they have one trio that very sharply reminded me of the trio that Ping, Pang and Pong sing in Turandot. Otherwise, they're definitely less impactful and less interesting than Ping, Pang, and Pong.
My read on the echo is that it's a commentary more on Nixon's expectations than it is on the truth of Puccini. Adams is hinting at the popular Western image of China, the veil that Nixon and his entourage are finally ostensibly piercing. But even as Nixon meets these people as people, the cultural gap means that some part of him (and us) still reads ordinary bureaucrats as creatures out of Puccini. We can't help but exoticize.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-18 19:21 (UTC)My read on the echo is that it's a commentary more on Nixon's expectations than it is on the truth of Puccini. Adams is hinting at the popular Western image of China, the veil that Nixon and his entourage are finally ostensibly piercing. But even as Nixon meets these people as people, the cultural gap means that some part of him (and us) still reads ordinary bureaucrats as creatures out of Puccini. We can't help but exoticize.