Act One

From the moment we see a huge, ghostly projection of the periodic table, to the conclusion of Doctor Atomic with the haunting voice of a Japanese woman repeatedly asking for water, this opera demands that viewers search their souls. We do so along with the scientists and soldiers of The Manhattan Project, their spouses, and those who worked for them. The opera takes place after the German surrender and delves into events one month before, and the day of, the test blast in Los Alamos in July, 1945.

I saw a Saturday matinee of Doctor Atomic via HD simulcast in New York’s Regal Union Square theatre, which was almost full. Audiences worldwide also saw the broadcast. The HD experience treated us to some back-stage instructions and an interview during intermission. When were heard “Maestro to the pit, please,” I knew this truly was a unique media event because the powerful digital cameras showed us so much more than we could have witnessed even sitting in orchestra seats at the opera house. During the principals’ arias, we saw close-ups with such crispness that I developed a new appreciation for the acting. It was so movie-like and the level of detail so great that their makeup almost became a distraction. And there were powerful panoramic sweeps of the simulated storm that delayed the test and foreshadowed the power about to be unleashed.

After the periodic table fades, composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars set up the science with the help of the chorus, whose members are concealed behind a grid of scientists’ IDs. Thousands of people, they sing, rather than one warped genius, are developing the bomb born of a nuclear fission chain reaction. The IDs are raised to reveal the singers in cubicles. They chant, “Now we know matter can become energy.”

This corrects the original, which premiered in San Francisco in 2005. It opened with the lines, “Matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Energy can be neither created or destroyed.” A UC Berkeley professor of physics informed Adams that these words fly in the face of Einstein’s theorem (E = mc2). According to one reviewer, he tried to correct the problem but gave up and said the change will have to come with the next production.

Conflict between the scientists occurs immediately; Edward Teller, sung by Richard Paul Fink, has received a letter from Leo Szilard, who conceived the nuclear chain reaction and is now at the University of Chicago. He says Germans share the guilt for the war because they did not protest against Hitler’s policies. But scientists, he argues, are in a position to raise their voices and take a stand against using the weapon without warning. He wants his colleagues to petition President Truman to demonstrate the bomb so that knowledge of the weapon’s existence will convince the Japanese to surrender. But J. Robert Oppenheimer, sung by Gerald Finley, responds that it is best to leave the matter in the hands of those in Washington, D. C. Teller argues that “machinery has caught us in its trap. We want to now whether it works.” He says attacking the Japanese is not justified until the U.S. makes clear the terms of peace. Oppenheimer dismisses this, saying we don’t know Japanese psychology. Teller accuses him of using his scientific experience to affect decision-making in Washington, but Oppenheimer counters that the Secretary of War has already decided not to warn the enemy. He wants to make a “profound psychological impression on as many inhabitants as possible.”

The singers delivered this libretto with great conviction. Both baritones, Finley and Fink voice arguments that seem to have equal force and weight as they challenge one another. Both of their points of view, sung in strict and ominous tones, indicate that there is no way to win the Faustian dilemma they face.

A tender scene follows with Oppenheimer and his wife, Kitty, sung by Sasha Cooke. Adams intended this bedroom scene “of voluptuousness, of sensuality, even eroticism,” as he writes on the Met’s web site, to contrast with the scientists’ nervousness and soul searching at the opening. See the the Metropolitan Opera’s site.
Kitty seeks recognition from her husband, who reads and rifles through memos in bed. Wanting to be touched, to be held, Kitty sings a poem by the 20th-century American poet Muriel Rukeyser, “Am I in Your Light?” The aria seemed filled with irony to me, because we had just heard Oppenheimer describe the “brilliant luminescence” of the bomb’s expected 20,000 feet high visual effect. If I can be anachronistic for a moment, this was his “shock and awe” to impress the Japanese.

Kitty wants to be the light of his life and yet he ignores her. Finally, he responds by reciting a sensual poem by the 19th-century poet Charles Baudelaire. “It’s an image of South Sea Islands and opium dreams,” says Adams, “it’s his way of making love to her.”

But we are thrown back to the reality of the mission; General Leslie Groves is furious with the meteorologist, who recommends postponing the test because of a storm. The general argues that the press is aware of the test and only voluntarily censoring itself. The stress of anticipation is taking its toll, a medical doctor reports. Scientists are terrified that radiation will kill them, eat through vital tissues and cause cancer. One scientist had to be removed under sedation. The doctor has been doubling as a psychiatrist because fear is infecting the camp. This scene seemed to make them all human; the cast looked dwarfed and frail as a huge facsimile of the bomb, a metal globe cradled with snakes of wire, was lowered and remained the backdrop until the end of the opera.

The most spectacular moment of the opera follows; Finley sings an aria with the words of the 17th-century metaphysical poet John Donne: “Batter my heart, three person’d God.” This poem led Oppenheimer to call the test site “Trinity.” Adams says it is about the loss of soul. The speaker asks God to literally beat him to a pulp so that the speaker can regain his integrity and sense of self. “Make me new,” Oppenheimer beseeches tripartite God. You can hear a portion of the aria on the Met’s site and Finley’s full performance in San Francisc on YouTube.

The music, with its violent anguish, is in D minor and pulled at my own heart. At first I thought the aria as Finley delivered it was on the edge of cantorial liturgy––the mournful, pleading music heard in synagogues on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. I know Oppenheimer was not a practicing Jew, nevertheless, despite “Trinity,” his interest in the Bhagahvad-Gita and poetry, this aria reminded me of the Jewish holiday when it is customary to ask others for forgiveness if one has caused offence, and to start the New Year afresh.

The aria was riveting, the character bursting into crisis.

Then it was intermission. More later.

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Baritone Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Dr. Atomic.

Representing scientists working on various aspects of the bomb, the chorus is compartmentalized.