Dr. Atomic

The atomic bomb is easily the most powerful weapon ever developed in all of human history, and now they’ve made an opera about it. Dr. Atomic focuses on the anxiety of all persons involved in the Manhattan Project, one month before the initial test, and the moments leading up to the test.

“Matter can be neither created nor destroyed but only altered in form. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed but only altered in form.” These opening lines delivered by the chorus quickly summed up the wrong assumptions that hindered the atomic bomb. The orchestra, led by conductor Alan Gilbert, and the chorus, led by chorus master Donald Palumbo, were instrumental in shaping the moods of the various scenes in the opera. The music didn’t really stick to one genre nor was it particularly recognizable like Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. Instead, it dutifully lurked in the background as an unseen manipulator of the setting, and lended strength to the tensions between characters on stage.

One thing that struck me as extremely odd was the use of a black actor to portray General Leslie Groves. I know that as the audience we’re supposed to suspend our disbelief as we enter the theatre, but the opera stretches history enough as it is. It was hard to believe that the military supervisor of such a secretive project in 1945 could be a black man. Personal nitpicking aside, Dr. Atomic was very hard to follow, and the recreation of the test blast was extremely disappointing. And what was the point of the Japanese voices? I suppose it was referring to the eventual use of the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it just didn’t hold an immediate enough connection to the test blast, which was the moment that the entire opera was building up to.