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TOM CRANN: This is All Things Considered from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Tom Crann. The Minnesota opera is taking the term political theater literally these days. Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Mao Zedong are all main characters in the opera's current production, Nixon in China, playing at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul.

At last night's performance, I got the perspective of a man who's no stranger to the political stage himself, former Vice President Walter Mondale. He was one of Minnesota's US senators in 1972, when President Nixon shocked the world by flying to Communist China in the middle of the Vietnam War. Mr. Mondale vividly remembers watching with the rest of the world as Richard and Pat Nixon arrived in China exiting Air Force One to greet Chinese foreign minister, Zhou Enlai, on the tarmac.

WALTER MONDALE: Well, it was a tremendous, tremendous and awesome event in modern world history. There are a bunch of senators in the Senate cloakroom watching this unbelievable event. And it was unbelievable for old Democrats like me because Nixon had spent his life running against the communists and against the Chinese communists.

And the thought that this would be the person who would make this great about face and open up the relations with China was doubly astounding. Here was the largest population on Earth now with atomic weapons, and we had no human connection whatsoever with it. So what was really dramatic about this was Nixon went to China and helped open up relations.

OPERA SINGER: (SINGING) Your flight was smooth, I hope, oh, yes

Smoother than usual, I guess

TOM CRANN: Now, the mood depicted here on the stage is almost one of glee for Nixon. Is that accurate, do you think?

WALTER MONDALE: I think if you look-- one of the brilliant things about the opera is the way there's always this video running in the background with real film of what happened. And I thought the giddiness was the artistic way of expressing the Nixon's party's sense of accomplishment. They knew they had hit a home run. He remember Nixon kept talking about how the world was watching it. They had satellite and television technology. First time in history this had happened.

OPERA SINGER: (SINGING) News, news, news, news, news, news, news, news

It's prime time in the USA

It's prime time in the USA

It's yesterday night

TOM CRANN: He knew it was big. He knew he'd succeeded. And so the giddiness, I think, was something the artist thought must have been inside them. It wasn't what showed up on the video. He was dignified as a politician should be. I thought that this probably reelected Nixon, and it had a lot to do with his re-election. And since I was up myself, I wasn't sure whether it would have an adverse effect on people like me.

OPERA SINGER: (SINGING) As I look down the road, I know America is good at heart

An old, cold warrior piloting towards an unknown shore

TOM CRANN: Nixon was not thought to be a sympathetic figure. Although I think almost everyone would give him credit for this strategically brilliant, courageous step that he took that the world had to take, he was not a person that had an awful lot of goodwill after what had happened. But this makes an interesting parallel story with history itself. It makes Nixon and Mao Zedong and almost every character sympathetic. You have a more personal version of what happened.

OPERA SINGER: (SINGING) My hand is as steady as a rock

A sound like mourning doves reaches my ears

TOM CRANN: It makes me look at it in a new way because here's a poet and an artist looking at the same stories. I look at it politically. He looks at it personally and poetically. And the other thing I thought was stunning is the real-time video backdrop of the opera. People like us who lived through it, to be able to see those very moments again as the opera moves forward is really-- I've never seen it done like this before.