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REVIEW Spano Triumph in Chicago’s ‘Dr Atomic’
OPERA REVIEW "Doctor Atomic" by John Adams and Peter Sellars. Lyric Opera of Chicago, through Jan. 19. www.lyricopera.org.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Chicago — “I demand a signed weather forecast,” barks General Leslie Groves, U.S. Army commander of the Manhattan Project, to his meteorologist. “If you are wrong I will hang you!”
It’s John Adams’ opera “Doctor Atomic,” set in the New Mexico desert, June 1945. A few laughs aside, the waiting is almost lethal. The laboratory director, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, suddenly sees the universe whole, speaking in verse about divine retribution. His lonely wife sings of foreboding, lost in a boozy haze. An idealistic faction of scientists have built a moral case against use of their own creation. Lab technicians race, or dance, across the stage.
The subject of all this anxiety is code named the “gadget” — the first atomic bomb. It might ignite the atmosphere, ending life on earth in a flash of E = MCsquared. And now an electrical storm is battering the site, threatening to scuttle the “Trinity” test.
If the test succeeds, humanity’s future is at risk; if it’s a dud, the men and women involved with building the bomb have failed. Striking that impossible balance — of public obligation and private ambition, with regrettable consequences either way — is a basic trope of Shakespeare, Verdi, Wagner. And it propels “Doctor Atomic,” which opened here Friday at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Although the opera premiered in San Francisco in 2005, with showings in Amsterdam, Chicago and, next fall, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Atlanta is all over it.
Atlanta Symphony music director Robert Spano led Chicago’s rhythmically taut, nuanced, insightful performance — a staggering display of virtuoso conducting.
Next fall, ASO principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles, who led the world premiere, will lead the ASO for performances in Symphony Hall and a recording for Adams’ long-time label, Nonesuch. It holds the potential to be one of the major events in ASO history.
I caught the “Atomic” premiere at the San Francisco Opera, where Runnicles is music director. Thanks to its complexities and raw newness, it was a mixed success. Spano takes it to a much higher, and deeper, plane: the savage rhythms crackled and contrasted with the soft lyricism. The singers delivered their anxious lines comfortably, within a precisely calibrated groove.
I like hearing different conductors interpret the same music. I also like the sense of competition between our maestros: Runnicles must find his own path if he’s to match Spano’s ferociously detailed account of the score.
Why Atlanta? First, Adams promised the recording to Runnicles. Then, when the composer conducted the ASO in April, he was impressed by the orchestra’s familiarity with his musical idiom, and dazzled by the ASO Chorus.
“Atomic” includes knotty and often gorgeous choral singing. “A sustained neutron chain reaction resulting from nuclear fission has been demonstrated,” they explain helpfully. (Peter Sellars’s libretto is drawn, in parts, from declassified government documents.)
Later, the chorus quotes the sacred Hindu Bhagavad-Gita: “Terrible with Fangs, O master/All the worlds are fear-struck, even just as I am.”
Atlanta will get its own semi-staged production; the less said about Sellars’ San Francisco stage direction (repeated in Chicago) the better.
In the music, Adams asks questions, raises possibilities, conveys doubts. Sellars’ production, in annoying contrast, provides hackneyed answers or contradicts the music. For example: the bomb hangs over the crib of Oppenheimer’s baby. (Which would you choose?)
High winds and sheets of rain — depicted as whooshes and tiny triplet figures from the orchestra — tell us what we need to know about the weather; Sellars has the men pacing and walking outside, which dissipates Adams’ detail.
Most of Chicago’s knockout cast will make the ASO recording. Soprano Jessica Rivera, as Kitty Oppenheimer, sings in burnished bronze tones. For her first aria, “Am I in your light?,” Adams coaxes warm violas and the low notes of the harp to create the voice of tragic love, as a bundled Mahlerian adagietto of emotion. It’s a lonely wife’s flirtatious question to her husband, absorbed in his reading.
In this opera, the word “light” is rich in connotations, from Enlightenment values to the atomic flash to the bright light that survivors of near-death experiences often speak of.
Husky-voiced baritone Eric Owens sings General Groves, his bluster masking his own insecurities. Richard Paul Fink is the creepy Edward Teller, his bass trolling the Mephistophelean darkness. The smaller parts were equally ideal, notably meteorologist James Maddalena (the star of Adams’ first opera, “Nixon in China”) and contralto Meredith Arwady, as the Oppenheimer’s Tewa Indian nanny.
As doctor atomic, Gerald Finley’s Oppenheimer is sketched as too foggy a character to hold the center. Yet the lyric baritone is devastatingly potent in his aria “Batter My Heart, three person’d God,” one of the opera’s many indelible scenes and one that deserves stand-alone performances.
Fortunately, Atlanta can look forward to the opera complete in what’s sure to be the highlight of the coming classical season.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Classical Music
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By Kevin
December 18, 2007 10:26 AM | Link to this
Wanted to convey a recent experience. Went to the LSO while in London and saw a powerful performance of Shostakovich’s 10th. It was an inspired, incredible performance. I told the woman I went with that it depressed me.
One would wonder why. It was because I told her there was a time, not long ago, that the ASO rivaled this amazing orchestra. Under Yoel Levi the ASO climbed to these heights. I considered it one of the top five orchestras in the country. A recent re listening to their Rite of Spring just went further to confirm the obvious; the ASO has become a provincial orchestra under Spano. His grasp of the Romantic repertoire is horrific. I understand that Telarc got so frustrated attempting to record them doing Tchaikovsky’s 4th that the producer and recording team packed up and went home. This frustration came from Spano’s weird ideas concerning the slow movement.
The musicians have become lax and lazy under his “leadership”. No wonder Arswensky is leaving, why should such a talent put up with such an environment. Notice how she didn’t even consult Spano about her decision! Instead of praising this failed group, why not start reviewing their concerts objectively. Reading between the lines one can sense at times your disapproval.
Are you afraid you will hurt ticket sales? A lack of quality goes further to hurt sales more than anything else. It is evident that you favor modern, atonal music, but there is a huge audience of people that appreciate the standard repertory. I personally am boycotting the orchestra when ever “S** and Spano” plays. All of my knowledgeable classical friends are doing the same (this is a bigger group than you would ever guess). The only reason such a lack luster person can lead an orchestra of this one time caliper is because Atlanta is an unsophisticated market where people jump to their feet regardless of the quality of performance. You could help. However, it is obviously your job is to be a booster for the orchestra, not a critic.
By the way, I have collected classical music for 50 years and have a passion for this art form that demands much better than the schlock we are currently receiving.