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Doctor Atomic (semi-staged)
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Composer |
John Adams |
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Librettist |
Peter Sellars |
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Venue and Dates |
Atlanta Symphony Hall 21, 23 November 2008 |
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Conductor |
Robert Spano Semi-staged performance |
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Production |
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Performers |
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Gerald Finley Kitty Oppenheimer: Jessica Rivera General Leslie Groves: Eric Owens Edward Teller: Richard Paul Fink Jack Hubbard: James Maddalena Robert Wilson: Thomas Glenn Captain James Nolan: Richard Clement Pasqualita: Meredith Arwady Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus |
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Notes |
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Courtesy of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra chorus DOCTOR ATOMIC Synopsis of scenes OVERTURE 1. Soundscape (electronic) 2. Orchestral Prelude 3. Chorus (“We believed that matter…”) ACT ONE Scene 1 - Los Alamos 1. Choral Intro (“The end of June, 1945…”) 2. Bomb Construction 3. Target Selection 4. Presidential Petition Scene 2 - Oppenheimer House Kitty and Oppenheimer’s “Bedroom” Duet Scene 3 - Los Alamos 1. Orchestral Interlude (inner and outer storms) 2. Gen. Groves and Hubbard - (Groves: “What the hell is wrong with the weather?”) 3. Nolan’s Scene (Radiation Risk) 4. Brief Orchestral Interlude - following Gen. Groves’ dismissal of the weathermen. 5. Oppenheimer Aria (“Batter my heart”) A. Orchestral Interlude (D-minor, agitated) B. Verse 1, “Batter my heart” A. Orchestral Interlude (D-minor, agitated) B. Verse 2, “Batter my heart” A. Orchestral Interlude (D-minor, agitated) - INTERMISSION – ACT TWO Scene 1 - Oppenheimer House 1. Kitty’s Aria, “Wary of Time.” 2. “Rain” Interlude (Orchestra) Scene 2 – “Trinity” Test Site 1. Wilson and Hubbard at “Trinity” 2. Dream Sequence – Wilson, Pasqualita and Kitty 3. “Trinity” Base Camp Scene 3 - Countdown 1. Countdown Chorus (“Ah!”) 2. “Corn Dance” Sequence 3. “Vishnu” Chorus 4. Oppenheimer’s Arietta (“To what benevolent demon”) 5. Orchestral Interlude, “Red Alert” 6. “Two Minute Warning” (Woop alarm) 7. “Clock Time” |
An article by Pierre Ruhe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 16 November 2008
http://www.accessatlanta.com/arts/content/printedition/2008/11/16/atomic.html
‘Atomic’ emperor of opera
Composer John Adams dominates the genre with his unique body of work
John Adams, on his way to Atlanta this week, is the first composer since Stravinsky to flood the market in all media.
A new book, a documentary, CDs and DVDs, performances, interviews, Web sites, lectures —- this fall the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer with the all-American name looks to be making a bid for both broad popular recognition and artistic dominance.
Adams’ just-released memoir, “Hallelujah Junction,” recalls his angst and satisfaction at becoming one of the most-admired classical musicians on the planet —- a life that, to everyone else, seems charmed beyond belief. A thoughtful writer, Adams has kind words for the Atlanta Symphony Chorus and conductors Robert Spano and Donald Runnicles; the book is a compelling read, too.
There’s also a new two-CD retrospective, offering highlights from Adams’ most celebrated scores. Punch-packing orchestral masterpieces share space with scenes from in-the-news operas including the brazen work that propelled him to the front ranks, “Nixon in China.”
And then there’s Adams’ latest opera on another new CD, a gorgeous, melodic fairy-tale called “A Flowering Tree.”
But it’s Adams’ acclaimed, controversial opera, “Doctor Atomic,” that is getting the most attention just now.
The ASO performs it Friday and next Sunday in Symphony Hall. This semi-staged version follows New York’s Metropolitan Opera production —- broadcast globally in high-definition movie theaters —- and a new DVD filmed at the opera’s European premiere.
From the start, ASO musicians were all over “Atomic.” ASO principal guest conductor Runnicles led the world premiere at the San Francisco Opera in 2005. Music director Spano conducted a slightly revised version in Chicago and will return to it this week in Atlanta.
“I hear ‘Doctor Atomic’ as an amazing amalgamation of 20th-century musical styles,” says Spano, “which John could do since he wrote it in the 21st century. He speaks in many tongues, and that includes Stravinsky and Mahler and sci-fi movie soundtracks and Bugs Bunny cartoon music and minimalism —- it’s not overt, it’s not obvious, but it’s all within his musical language.”
Spano adds, “The formal structures are so big that ‘Doctor Atomic’ is almost Beethovenian in that way. All the small parts refer back to the big, overarching idea. The structure is always right there.”
Adams’ sound world —- at turns brawny and lyrical and always dense with his personality —- is well known in these parts.
The ASO has played most of his orchestral and choral scores, going back to the Robert Shaw days. We’ve grown accustomed to seeing Adams on the calendar every season.
Last year the composer himself conducted in Symphony Hall, including his Pulitzer-winning “On the Transmigration of Souls,” which the New York Philharmonic commissioned as its official memorial for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Reached at his home in Berkeley, Calif., Adams seems at once flattered by the love he gets from top musicians and eager to fight for the highest standards from everyone else.
“I’ve encountered too many clueless performances of my music,” says the composer, “where it’s been programmed without knowing how much rehearsal effort they’ll need. In Atlanta, the chorus is so disciplined and so musically prepared by Norman [Mackenzie, chorus master] that all the difficulties in performance seem to vanish. I think Norman is a genius.
“It’s so rare to have both the orchestra and audience on board with my music, as in Atlanta; I feel very lucky.”
What the critics say
Pierre Ruhe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 24 November 2008
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/11/24/atomic.html
Debuting opera fails to connect to audience
Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt defines the Bard’s history plays as “taking the audience back into a time that had dropped away from living memory but that was still eerily familiar and crucially important.”
That’s the spirit of John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic,” an opera about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the bomb.
The opera is also about: the folly of trying to harness volatile nature; empty relationships in our modern world; and assuming we can control mankind’s morality with the same precision that we engineer the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.
It’s a lot to cover, even in a three-hour evening.
Premiered in San Francisco in 2005, “Doctor Atomic” was given its local premiere by the mighty forces of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, its superlative chorus, conductor Robert Spano and the definitive cast of singers.
And Friday in Symphony Hall, “Doctor Atomic” wasn’t just about history, it felt like a historic event for Atlanta: a grand and head-spinning new opera by America’s leading composer, who was in the audience and received the most bravos at the end.
All true, yet, frustratingly, the ASO’s semi-staged production couldn’t fully connect with the audience, which gave it mostly polite applause at the end.
Two factors might explain this. The biggest is the opera’s own limitations. Librettist Peter Sellars stitched together a high-anxiety tale drawing from Manhattan Project archival documents, diaries and relevant poetry.
And where Act 1 follows a compelling narrative thread, with gripping music to match, Act 2 is a hazy meditation on time standing still, waiting for the big bang.
Did the creators aim higher than they could deliver? In trying to elevate these atomic overachievers into men and women of mythic stature, they hollowed them out.
The more incidental limitation was James Alexander’s stage direction. The singers, lightly amplified, were stationed on a platform at the back of the stage.
Visual projections clarified the action: photos from Los Alamos, a picture of lightning during the storm or a map of Japan when bombing targets were discussed.
Alexander had the singers focus their attention directly toward the audience, as in a concert oratorio, rather than to each other. This compounded the libretto’s fundamental communication problem.
Thus when Oppenheimer (baritone Gerald Finley) and his wife, Kitty (soprano Jessica Rivera), sang their kinky-intellectual love duet —- poetry by Baudelaire and Muriel Rukeyser, respectively —- they stood far apart, draining the music’s pent-up sexual energy.
A pity it didn’t come off as intense drama, because this is some of Adams’ most bewitchingly beautiful and emotionally fraught music.
The Atlanta cast, even the smaller parts, had all sung “Atomic” before, bringing depth to their interpretations.
Rivera’s voluptuous soprano, with a hint of melancholy in her tone, made Kitty a woman of strength and pathos.
Finley, who created the role of Oppenheimer, sang with a chestnut mellow baritone and offered the opera’s most perfectly realized aria, “Batter My Heart.”