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Dr. Atomic
A new opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars
At the Lyric Opera
20 N Wacker Dr.
Chicago, IL
Tickets: 312-332-2244 ext 5600 $31 - $176
http://www.lyricopera.org
running time is 3 hours, 17 minutes with intermissions
January 5, 2008 at 2pm
January 9, 12, 15, 19 at 7pm
The Stars are born at Nuclear Dawn
John Adams is widely held to be among the greatest living American composers. He has developed an ability to communicate with a wide range of audiences, garnering respect from his peers while stirring the soul of the general public. Through January, the Lyric Opera presents Dr. Atomic, Adams’s latest operatic collaboration with librettist/director Peter Sellars.
The subject for their opera, as the title suggests, is Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Manhattan Project, as he leads his team of scientists and military personnel to the first successful Atomic Bomb in Alamogordo, NM.
Oppenheimer, too, is a figure who is revered by fellow scientists but whose significance is not lost on the general public. Not lost completely, but perhaps we lose sight of the significance from time to time when we feel we have understood well enough to move on. With certain historical subjects, this may be enough, but we will never be able to completely escape from the gravity of the nuclear age that dawned one July morning in 1945. So, from time to time, we must revisit; we will never get to the bottom, but artists, like Adams and Sellars, can help us deepen our understanding of the events surrounding our new-found power.
Nothing Adams or Sellars could have done would have rivaled the sheer power of the Bomb. Wisely, then, their opera, avoids the explosion altogether focusing instead on the human element. The libretto was not created ex nihilo—for text can neither be created nor destroyed, only altered in form—but rather it was assembled by Sellars from documents and correspondence, some of which recently declassified.
The libretto, then, can seem cumbersome and technical, to the extent that the chorus sings a description of how the nuclear core should be surrounded—the first time I have ever heard the word “dodecahedron” sung before. To soften the hard edges of the libretto, Sellars chose lines from poetry dear to Oppenheimer: Baudelaire, John Donne and the Bhagavad-Gita. According to Sellars, “Oppenheimer was reading Baudelaire every day in that last period, and he had a copy of it in his pocket.”
Due to the nature of the libretto, a large portion of Act I seems to trod through textual deserts; it is very dry and, between the military and the scientific speech, almost devoid of human life. It serves its purpose, however, and sets up the plot in such a way that it seems real, just real (though I might have preferred hyperreal, such that the libretto is actually more dramatic with more subtext than what really happened).
So we hear the scientific explanations, political debates, and then a description of the General’s failed diets all set to Adams’ disjunct melodies, leaping high and low, thus making the mundane subjects of conversation inherently dramatic. The situation, surely, is ripe with drama, but I grew tired of every line being squeezed for all of its dramatic potential—all the time. I was convinced, in fact, that Adams left himself little room to increase the tension, but I was wrong.
Oppenheimer’s aria at the end of the Act I finally shows the great scientist admitting, alone, that he has deeply rooted doubts about the Bomb’s moral ramifications. Adams strips away all of the technical music and leaves the individual human, bare, facing what he is about to become: “the destroyer of worlds.”
Act II focuses more on Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, and her Native American maid, Pasqualita. These two roles were Sellars’s conscious effort to introduce a feminine element to the austere male world: no women were allowed at the test site. Kitty’s role filled the human gap that I felt in the first act, but the role of Pasqualita seemed awkward and bulky.
The second act throws aside most of the debate and centers on the wait. The endless anticipation and anxiety permeates through both the men’s world and the women’s. Kitty starts drinking and becomes hysterical; Oppenheimer and the scientists wager that the Bomb will either fizzle or set the atmosphere on fire. The opera does not end up showing the success of the Bomb; so in lieu of cataclysmic resolution, it impregnates a pause in the split-moment before the detonation. We all know, of course, from history, what happens then.
Adams’s music is some of the most beautiful and advanced of his career. Almost every moment is infused with his style, but few moments, if any, sound like he is stealing from his past. As beautiful as it is, however, he only renders the characters human in a few more intimate scenes. Sellars’s direction also keeps the audience one step removed from the characters. They often move in abstract shapes instead of just being human. The choreography also erred on the side of the abstract, making a ballet that was more of a mock-ballet-fusion, or maybe a meta-ballet. (The real question with the dancers is not “what?” but rather: “why?”)
Fortunately for the audience, the performers kept us focused on the human side. Jessica Rivera as Kitty and Gerald Finley as Oppenheimer were by far the strongest. Their voices seemed to transcend Adams’s vocal acrobatics and turn it into more of a dance, while their physical presence on stage showed that they were, in spite of the inhuman situation, in fact, human. I did not believe, however, that Meredith Arwady’s Pasqualita was real; I felt like we both were aware that she was a singer singing on stage and being dramatic.
After seeing the performance, I left the theatre unsure of whether I liked it. I certainly enjoyed it but was also frustrated by it. I read the program after the concert, a mistake, because there was a great deal historical insight that would have better fertilized the soil of my imagination. The day after seeing Dr. Atomic, I did some investigating on the internet to further immerse myself in the reality of atomic weapons; as I did so, the opera grew in my estimation. July 16, 1945 became more of a gateway than ever, one that we can never go back through. It was a significant event for humanity, one that has shaped global politics ever since. Adams’ and Sellars’s opera tease out the tension, but it works better if you know more. The audience at the opera seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation, and the pause before the applause, sitting alone with our thoughts in the dark hall, was a sublime moment. That moment and the ends of Acts I and II make the whole experience worth it. I recommend going, but please do not be the first person to break the shared moment of silence at the end.
Recommended
Evan Kuchar
I highly recommend these links before going:
Atomic Bomb video:
http://worldwar2database.com/movies/a_bomb_T1.mov
Eyewitness account:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/atomictest.htm
Historical account:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp45at.html
Largest Nuclear Bomb video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2046393742348211186
Lyric Opera Website:
http://www.lyricopera.org/productions.aspx?arrRef=20084
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