'Don Giovanni' To 'Nixon In China': Holiday Feasts In Opera

By Miles Hoffman

Published November 22, 2012 at 2:50 AM CST

President Nixon pardons a turkey in 1969. There's quite a celebratory banquet scene in the John Adams opera, <em>Nixon in China</em>. — President Nixon pardons a turkey in 1969. There's quite a celebratory banquet scene in the John Adams opera, *Nixon in China*.

As you prepare to feast upon cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and your choice of entree this Thanksgiving, there's also an operatic feast to be had. Classical commentator Miles Hoffman joins NPR's Renee Montagne to take us through a five-course musical meal, from the insatiable hunger of a starving trio during "Musetta's Waltz" in Puccini's La Bohème to the fiery dinner scene in Mozart's Don Giovanni to the joyous state banquet heard in John Adams' Nixon in China.

Miles Hoffman

Morning Edition music commentator Miles Hoffman is the author of The NPR Classical Music Companion, now in its tenth printing from the Houghton Mifflin Company. Before joining Morning Edition in 2002, Hoffman entertained and enlightened the nationwide audience of NPR's Performance Today every week for 13 years with his musical commentary, "Coming to Terms," a listener-friendly tour through the many foreign words and technical terms peculiar to the world of classical music.