he unlikely topic of the development of the atom bomb makes for an evening of musical delights thanks to the genius of composer John Adams. Doctor Atomic, an opera by Adams in collaboration with librettist/director Peter Sellars, depicts the events leading up to the first test detonation of the A-bomb in Alamagordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945, and is a musical triumph not to be missed.
The production, which made its debut at the San Francisco Opera on Oct. 1, will be seen in at least four other opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York. It should be sought out by any fan of science fiction or opera.
The story focuses upon the moral complexities facing physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in the closing days of World War II as he works to keep the test on schedule, placate worried scientists under his supervision and satisfy the military brass.
The historical facts are well known. Oppenheimer, a high-strung, brilliant scientist, herded a fractious band of physicists—including Edward Teller, who would, years later, betray him—on a desperate mission to create the ultimate weapon of war. The scientists were under pressure from the belief—now proved unfounded—that Adolf Hitler had a similar goal, with the intention of unleashing a nuclear bomb upon the United States.
As the scientists neared completion of the bomb, Germany surrendered. But work on the weapon continued, and Japan, still at war with the U.S., was selected to be its target. The moral fallout from that decision is part of what is heavily underlined in Doctor Atomic's libretto.
Shimmering sonic effects
The music is sublime—shimmering sonic effects, some magnificent and deeply moving arias and one thundering, overwhelming Handelian chorus, an invocation of Vishnu the Destroyer as the
countdown to detonation is about to begin.
Alas, the libretto, a nondramatic hodgepodge of military, political, poetic and scientific commentary drawn from actual sources, is awkward and talky, creating emotional opacity when just the opposite is desired. The stage action for the most part is so busy that it seems to be desperately filling in the libretto's emotional blanks. The events depicted by the opera should provide their own dramatic necessity, without the distraction of 20 dancers racing around the stage representing the war effort, the nuclear clock ticking, women in the military, victims of terrorism and/or any other political considerations Sellars was loath to leave unaddressed.
Sellars has directed several of composer John Adams' controversial operas, among them Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer. This is his first turn as librettist. He stepped in when Adams' usual librettist, Alice Goodman, couldn't—or wouldn't—do the job. The result, however well-meaning, is a static collage of too much information.
Unfortunately, Adams and Sellars felt uncomfortable using the all-male cast historic verisimilitude would require and shoehorned earnest scenes of Oppenheimer's wife Kitty, infant daughter and Native American nanny, Pasqualita, into the action. These self-conscious moments of dramatic flab injure the three-hour opera, and the insertion of Muriel Rukeyser's poetry and the traditional Native American lullabies feels didactic and even desperate.
The set is minimal, reliant upon lighting effects and dominated by the presence of "Fat Boy," the bomb itself, hanging above the stage like a giant pendulum. The opera opens with a startling aural assault—a bang, if you will: the uncredited noise made by a cyclotron. It ends with a whimper: the untranslated request, in Japanese, for a glass of water. It's unclear whose decision, Adams or Sellars, this ending was. To this listener it feels like a gratuitous bit of manipulation.
The heart of the opera is, of course, its music, and the centerpiece of the evening is the show-stopping aria "Batter my heart, three-person'd God," a musical setting of John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV revealing the terrible internal turmoil that Oppenheimer endures. In this aria, Oppenheimer makes a literal appeal to God to save him from damnation for his actions. As rendered by the lyric baritone Gerald Finley, it provides a transfixing moment of musical and dramatic power, an unforgettable, perfect moment.
