<<< previous performance of Dr Atomic <<< >>> Dr Atomic Chicago, 2007 >>>
Sunday, 9 December 2007, 2–5 pm
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S. Michigan Avenue
John Adams
Gerald Finley
Peter Sellars
Dr. Norman Ramsey
Martin Sherwin
Henry Frisch
James Cunol
Wynne Delacoma, renowned music critic, and Peter Sagal, host of NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" moderators
The defining event of the 20th century, the development of the Atomic Bomb, is the basis for this John Adams work. The symposium's distinguished panelists include composer John Adams; his librettist and director Peter Sellars; Gerald Finley, who portrays Robert Oppenheimer in the opera; Nobelist Norman Ramsey who worked with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos and flew in an observation plane over Hiroshima alongside the Enola Gay; Pulitzer Prize-winning Oppenheimer biographer Martin Sherwin; noted physicist and teacher Henry Frisch, whose parents worked on the Manhattan Project and who now is a keeper of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock (the figurative representation of humanity's proximity to global catastrophe); and president and CEO of The Art Institute of Chicago, James Cuno. Join them for a fascinating look at both the opera and the incidents and characters that inspired it. A once-in-a-lifetime convergence of music, history, and scholarship, this not-to-be-missed symposium is an historic event in its own right!
Presented in cooperation with The Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Humanities Festival.