Adams and Sellars create an extravaganza Submitted on: 2009-10-13
Mesmerized by the fascinating very recent documentary (which sadly I caught only the last 15 minutes of) on the making of this opera, called "Wonders Are Many" and aired recently on PBS, I was more than happy to sit down and watch the entire opera, from the Met, on TV -- starring Gerald Finley.
In case you don't know, "Doctor Atomic" is the story of physicist Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project -- that is, the building of the first atomic bomb, in seclusion in New Mexico in the 1940s. The opera follows Oppenheimer and the rest of the scientists and aides and their families, holed up in close and distressing quarters, working under great pressure and often filled with moral misgivings about what they were doing yet at the same time rushed by high-level U.S. government officials to complete, test, and roll out the finished product, no matter what.
As you might imagine, the opera is fascinating. Adams' music is, well, certainly up to one's expectations of him, and certainly if you like his other stuff, including the fascinating and groundbreaking Nixon in China, you'll like this.
The libretto, written by Peter Sellars, is also a tour-de-force. It's based on a multitude of sources, including documents and literature. The result is a collage of poetry (Oppenheimer himself was inordinately fond of poetry, and as a young man considered that as a career option), history, biography, and philosophy. In addition to the historical documents and letters, Sellars uses abundant quotations from the Bhagavad Gita, and from the poetry of John Donne, Charles Baudelaire, and Muriel Rukeyser. The result is a mixture of fact and imagery that dazzles, but can occasionally be befuddling.
Excellent notes on the Libretto are found on the Metropolitan Opera's official site. Click: Watch & Listen > Saturday Matinée Broadcasts > All Operas.
Things I liked: The singing was first rate (and that's saying a lot, as the music is quite difficult).
The sets and staging/direction (and even the costuming and makeup) were spectacular -- some of the best and most evocative I've ever seen. And extremely creative, yet always in the service of the story, never detracting from it.
The music was, as mentioned, fascinating, especially during certain sequences like the very end.
Things I didn't like (don't be put off by my grousing -- I like to analyze things): I think the thing should have been edited a bit, either libretto-wise or music-wise.
Namely:
(1) There's a bedroom sequence in which Oppenheimer muses for a full 7 minutes solely about his wife Kitty's hair. That's when I turned the recording off the first time, and started up again at a later date.
(2) Kitty Oppenheimer has one or two scenes with Oppenheimer, which are fine, but the rest of her scenes are solos, and usually very long ones. That would possibly be fine if what she was singing was germane to the story. However, she sings only abstract images and rootless musings which make little or no sense, at least the way the music has them sung. Bits of Rukheyser's or Baudelaire's poetry are very hard to follow and make any sense at all of, unless the music helps the phrases cohere and relate, and unless the music conveys her state of mind and the point of it all. I was left with the impression that Kitty was losing her grip on reality, which was not the actual case. So, in the end, I don't know if this was a libretto problem or a music problem. I think would have been GREAT if Kitty had sung at least a few sane human sentences, to ground her into reality like Oppenheimer's lines were grounded so effectively. Conclusion: If you see the opera, get acquainted a bit with the sources of the libretto, especially the Rukheyser. See the extensive notes on the Met site, and/or check Wikipedia.
(3) It seemed long to me at three hours, largely because of items (1) and (2) above. I think a little editing could have been in order, as it got slightly repetitive and long. To me, that is.
Upshot: Do see it, or watch the DVD, if you have a chance.
I personally would recommend seeing the fabulous 90-minute "Making of" DVD, Wonders Are Many: The Making of "Doctor Atomic", even more than the opera itself! (Amazon reviewers agree with me.) It was exciting, thrilling, abundantly creative and informative, and there was never a dull moment. Frankly, you get to experience the opera without sitting through it. Excellent stuff!
great listen Submitted on: 2009-07-24
Disclosure: I really like Adams. Having said that, I don't like everything he has done. But this piece is fine listening, indeed. Good voices and a well balanced orchestra keep you engaged throughout. The research for the story has been criticized and the story will likely be controversial, but shouldn't art be just that? Ok, it's one POV. Take it as that. Only downside of the DVD is that after viewing it once, I realized that while I certainly would listen again, I probably wouldn't watch again. Why? The dance sequences weren't very good. For a first viewing, it was acceptable, but I wouldn't be indulgent a second time. I wish they had a way to jump to some of the best arias when you want to enjoy the best of disc: some sort of highlights feature. All said: at today's rate of $200 for an orchestra tic, this $40 DVD is a great way to sample important culture without breaking the bank.
A Twentieth-Century Faust Submitted on: 2009-07-14
DOCTOR ATOMIC is a timely work of art that is at once crucial on both an artistic and a societal level. Adams's portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer as a contemporary Faust character is perhaps more felicitous today than had the opera been written in 1946. While the connate drama associated with the idea of an atomic bomb is certainly obvious and embedded in the production, Adams and Peter Sellars (the librettist and director) ingeniously focus their dramatic attentions to the human drama of the characters at hand that is only natural given their participation in such a morally-rooted dilemma. As the opera progresses, the audience becomes witness to the emotional and intellectual struggles Oppenheimer endures as he tries to rationalize his scientific agenda with his moral obligations.
Act I ends with Oppenheimer's heart-wrenching aria ("Batter my heart three-personed God...") that is a setting of one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets. It is with this aria that Adams most definitely makes an allusion to the historic Faust legend of a man who sells his soul to the devil in order to gain knowledge ("...but I am betrothed unto your enemy..."). Not only is Adams's setting of the text impeccable, but Gerald Finley's delivery and performance are among the greatest operatic achievements in perhaps all of music history. Adams mirrors this aria in Act I with a less-powerful but arguably more haunting aria for Oppenheimer ("To what benevolent demon do I owe the joy of being thus surrounded?")
Other highlights include the Act I, Scene II bedroom scene in which Oppenheimer and his wife, Kitty, make love to one another by reciting the poetry of Charles Boudelaire, and the transcendental arias for Kitty's maid, Pasqualita, which are sung very convincingly by the powerful contralto of Ellen Rabiner. And, of course, one cannot forget to mention the nebulous finale, which, with its clock-like pulses and inconclusive culmination, leaves observers both stunned and deep in thought as the voice of an ambiguous Japanese woman (feebly asking for a glass of water) fades into the silence of reality.
With DOCTOR ATOMIC, John Adams has created what is arguably the first important opera in the twenty-first century. In reading the other reviews that have been posted, I am somewhat discouraged to find that people are still categorizing Adams's music as minimalist and lacking of melodic or harmonic fluency. While it would certainly be foolish to argue that Adams has never written "minimal" scores, it is just as foolish to place that label on any of his works reaching as far back as NIXON IN CHINA. While motor-rhythms and repetition still permeate the music, Adams has also unearthed a new harmonic palette, that (in spite of not being "traditional") is both imaginatively novel and intrinsically functional. Even more conspicuous is Adams's obvious gift for melody. He has discovered a lyricism that is at once haunting and challenging, yet (to refute one previous reviewer) completely memorable and indelible enough that I often find myself humming the melodies from this opera quite frequently.
"We are dreams -- you should have dreamed us" Submitted on: 2009-07-09
The reviews already posted for "Doctor Atomic" are some of the most thoughtful, fascinating and, in some cases, hilarious I have ever read on Amazon. Can I add anything of value to what they've said? I shall attempt to do so.
First of all, even in the standard DVD format, this is a demonstration-quality disc. Sitting in front of my eight-and-a-half inch portable DVD player with speakers that leave much to be desired, I felt as though I was in the opera house. The music was reproduced loudly, clearly and with amazing directionality. I can only imagine what an overwhelming experience this disc must be played on a high-quality home theater system.
As for the opera itself, Adams is my favorite currently active opera composer, and while "Doctor Atomic" is in some ways the least satisfying of his three grand operas, it is still a work of the highest artistic caliber, worthy of serious consideration and multiple viewings and hearings. Like some other reviewers, I was left unsatisfied by the balance of views presented in the work. Despite being a liberal Democrat, Adams presented us with a profoundly sympathetic, almost loveable "Nixon in China", and the alleged pro-Palestinian bias of "The Death of Klinghoffer" is largely redressed by Marilyn Klinghoffer's anguished final aria. In "Doctor Atomic", however, the only halfway convincing statement of a pro-bombing viewpoint is the poetic concept of "fierce peace" to which both Oppenheimers refer several times. I find this forgiveable, however, since in this case Adams and Sellers clearly felt so strongly about the issue that any attempt on their part to present "the other side" would probably have been highly unconvincing, and only weakened the opera. Similarly, while the opera's ending is depressing and somewhat underwhelming musically, it's hard to see how else the work could have appropriately ended, since the unimaginable tragedy of Hiroshima did need to be acknowledged.
Concerning the Oppenheimers singing Christian poetry such as "Batter my heart, three-person'd God", I think criticism of this on the grounds that Oppenheimer was Jewish reflects a troubling modern mindset that people should not be open to the beauty and significance of the artistic and cultural expressions of faiths other than their own. After all, the majority of "Doctor Atomic"'s audience is not Hindu, and yet Adams and Sellers expect the audience to be affected by the poetic power and relevance of the passage from the "Bhagavad-Gita" (the vision of Vishnu the Destroyer) sung by the chorus in the opera's second act. Why, then, could J. Robert Oppenheimer not have found beauty and meaning in the John Donne sonnet? As a non-observant Jewish man, what the opera's Oppenheimer means by "three-person'd God" is, surely, "the God whom I am not sure exists, and whom Donne thought of as a Trinity".
The staging of Oppenheimer's aria is interesting in that, when I first saw it, I thought it was rather over-the-top, and might have seemed so even in the opera house, and yet it is the moment that most strongly sticks with me as I look back upon the opera. Perhaps Peter Sellers knew what he was doing after all. Certainly he clearly put a great deal of thought into his often bizarre-seeming video direction of this DVD, and I think that even his most unexpected choices will reward analysis and reflection on why precisely he chose to shoot something a certain way (for example, the rack focus from the sleeping Kitty to the Indian throw beside her face on her couch).
This DVD is definitely recommended to anyone interested in modern opera. Even if one is ultimately unconvinced by some aspects of Sellers' production, it is an indispensable historic document.
John Adams' most listenable opera Submitted on: 2009-05-10
Adams is generally considered the third in the trivium of successful 'minimalist' composers in America, as he has failed to attract a significant cult following on the scale of either Philip Glass or Steve Reich. This is probably due to the lack of a signature musical style that is immediatley identifiable, which is simultaneously an artistic virtue and a commercial liability. In DOCTOR ATOMIC, Adams has abandoned his usual eliptical sound patterns in favor of a more direct approach that echoes the emphatic percussive idioms of Glass and Reich. This makes for a listening experience that is less complicated that Adams' previous works, but far more compelling. The aria 'Batter my Heart' sung by Oppenheim is the highlight of the work, and clearly owes a debt to the calculated dynamo of Glass pieces like ITAIPU and AKENATEN. This opera represents a departure from dogmatic minimalism, and in that sense reflects the progression of other minimalists who owe their commercial success to their gradual drift towards recycled nineteenth century romanticism. It's what people want to hear.
Adams and Sellars create an extravaganza
A Twentieth-Century Faust
John Adams' most listenable opera