From the Ledge

Dr. Atomic is not your grandmother’s opera, and as such might not be for all tastes.  There are no dramatically back-lit heroines dying of consumption, no lush orchestrations, no grandiose and theatrical sets or stage tableaux.  Instead, it has a complex, weary scientist hero, a minimalist modern score that successfully evokes paranoia and dread, and spare but dramatically effective staging, using shifting fences, pentagonal shapes, and poles, to suggest an atomic lab, an upper middle-class home, and the majestic New Mexico desert.  Dr. Atomic, although as emotionally wrenching as the best staging of, say, La Traviata, is, more importantly, for me, intellectually provocative and sophisticated, asking questions about individual conscience and accountability, the moral implications of decision-making, the contradictory nature of waging war in order to create or preserve a version (someone’s version, not a universal one) of peace.  It’s probably one of the most intellectually satisfying cultural events I have gone to see this year in Chicago or elsewhere.

I don’t really call myself an opera expert like my Minneapolis BFF Joey, who has a PhD in Music and who can tell you the libretto of the most obscure Rossini opera with passion and an astounding level of detail.  I have enjoyed many an opera over the years, including the standards (show me an Asian gay guy who doesn’t see himself in the drama queen antics of Madama Butterfly’s Ciocio-san, and I’ll show you my pet hippopotamus), as well as the modern ones, such as the first John Adams-Peter Sellars collaboration Nixon in China, which is about, well, Nixon’s historic visit to China and meeting with Chairman Mao in the 1970s (although that ridiculous “slumber party” ending of Nixon, Chairman Mao, Pat Nixon, and Madame Mao changing into pajamas and going to sleep on top of giant TV sets diluted my enjoyment of what is, overall, a terrific opera).  Although I appreciate and understand the theatrical elements of an opera, I have very limited abilities to comment on the musical aspect of the piece.  So for a very good, and musically educated,  review of Dr. Atomic, check out one of the most interesting Chicago arts and culture blogs I read, Marc Geelhoed’s Deceptively Simple.  Also, you can read the Chicago Tribune and New York Times reviews in this earlier blogpost.

Dr. Atomic chronicles the days leading up to the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico in the summer of 1945, with a riveting, multi-dimensional central character in J. Robert Oppenheimer, the highly-regarded scientist who led the Manhattan Project.  Peter Sellars, the director, also wrote the libretto - “wrote” should probably be loosely used, since most of the lyrics came verbatim from a mishmash of sources:  classified government documents about the Manhattan project, scientific manuals about atomic energy, Oppenheimer  biographies, as well as excerpts from the literature that Oppenheimer, a highly-educated, artistic, and sophisticated man, loved: the Bhagavad Gita, and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Muriel Rukeyser, and most importantly, John Donne.   I found Act One to be fascinating, taut, and very stimulating.  In this Act, the various characters, especially the idealistic and guilt-ridden young scientist Robert Wilson, (some passionate singing from the young tenor, Thomas Glenn) pose the wrenching questions that haunted the makers of the bomb:  How can someone proceed on a course that one knows has a destructive conclusion?  How do you determine, and who determines it, moral imperatives and the trade-offs they entail?  Is there a greater good (national security, etc.) that justifies the knowledgeable use of war and aggression?  Should science be used, wittingly or unwittingly, for harm?  These are challenging questions that are as relevant to us today as they were in 1945.  Act One ends with a bravado aria sung by the terrific Gerald Finley as Oppenheimer, which basically sets John Donne’s sonnet about the Holy Trinity (which inspired Oppenheimer to name the site of the atomic bomb test “Trinity”), to gorgeous, but intense, music.  Finley’s performance of this aria, which clearly summarized all of Oppenheimer’s anguish, doubts, and guilt at building the bomb and using it on Japan, is heart-stopping.  You can feel yourself sweating (because of empathy?  because of pity?  because you know the tragic historical outcome?)  at the end of the piece.

I thought Act Two was a little less interesting than Act One, particularly because of the long, preachy arias pleading for peace and restraint that the Kitty Oppenheimer character sang.  I know these are important messages, but they sound pretty obvious, and I hate to say this, emotionally manipulative, at times.  I wanted to see more of Robert’s increasing devastation, as the day for the first test approached, when he realizes the impact that the atomic bomb would have on humanity forever and the role he is playing in creating that awful inevitability.  I won’t give the opera’s ending away, because it has to be experienced to really comprehend the forcefulness of its dramatic impact, but suffice it to say that the opening night audience was stunned into stillness for several minutes before they broke into loud applause.

Dr. Atomic is not perfect:  I think the work could stand some trimming, the Chorus could have been more dynamic, and the artsy dancing (which looked clumsily choreographed and, frankly, inane) could have been eliminated altogether. But overall, not only with its music and staging, but primarily because of the themes it forces us to confront, Dr. Atomic is a memorably important work, heads above many productions currently playing in Chicago, of any performing art form.  In Act One, the Chorus sings of the Japanese cities identified as targets.  Kyoto was originally the top target because the war leadership was convinced that dropping the atomic bomb on the cultural and artistic center of Japan would create the most emotional and psychological havoc on the population.  However reprehensible that reasoning was (especially for passionate arts lovers like me), it demonstrated the power and the importance that art has in defining our humanity.  Dr. Atomic is an undeniable proof of that insight.

Upcoming performance dates for Dr. Atomic at the Lyric Opera are January 5, 9, 12, 15, and 19, 2008.

Share This