Doctor Atomic: A Rant and/or Review

Now being performed at the Metropolitan Opera through November 13th

Modern opera isn’t for everyone.  That has been made abundantly clear to me time and time again when I seem to be one of the few left standing after three and a half hours of confused, atonal yelling in English.  The older and predominant opera audience doesn’t seem to have the same yearning that I do to be constantly challenged by the noise that sometimes finds its way to music. Older audiences would seemingly prefer waiting for a new production of something a touch more dated and lyrical.

Thankfully, the Metropolitan Opera seemingly is committed to bringing new works to the grand stage, putting them up against the greats like La Traviata and La Boheme, and even advertising these new works as if they actually mean something.  The aggressive ad campaigns for both Doctor Atomic and last year’s Satygraha were impressive.  So why new opera?  Why do I go and sit for three hours to experience something that is often unpleasant?  Because in its unpleasantness is true beauty.

John Adams has composed an utterly confused score, mashed up myriad styles, pulled from incredible sources, that when heard over the course of three and a half hours can only serve to impress and awe those who are actually listening.  Starting with noise, literally, pumped in over the speakers surrounding the opera house, music slowly forms from the orchestra.  It’s bombastic throughout by using contrast, moving from extreme calm and quiet, cinematic in its styling to the aggressive pummeling of repeated utterances, notes and sounds, blaring out of the orchestra pit, coming together sometimes in stunning harmony and often times slowly shifting to become dissonant over time.

And here is the essence of the work, it’s all about time and timing.  The opera stands as an extended countdown to the inevitable first successful test of the atomic bomb.  In some respects, it is the preamble to a more classic opera.  Rather than throwing the drama directly on stage, the atomic bomb literally hangs above the stage, just sitting like some dark moon, an impending doom of a moment that will change our collective history forever.  So while the score ticks down the minutes, we watch our characters flail at the significance of what they are about to do.  We watch Oppenheimer go from extreme confidence concerning his work, even when challenged by other scientists, to nearly being destroyed by it.  We watch his wife, Kitty Oppenheimer, trying to remind him what humanity is and what is at stake, slowly turning towards a cry for peace at any cost, unsure of the results.  And it is in these darkest of moments that the music finally rests and creates something truly lyrical.  Oppenheimer takes the stage for the finale of Act I and delivers a striking aria of his own personal crisis.  Singing of breaking him, burning himself all in an effort to make him new, the melody undulates from whispered prayer to utter wails, ending with his arm raised up to the bomb, his personal genius and personal destruction.  In the most horrible moment of personal angst, Adams gives us perfect lyrical simplicity.

Watching this slow evolution of music and character, one can’t help but be swayed into questioning our own evolution.  Are we standing by idly watching the world change before us?  If given the opportunity to change the world, would we not pursue it with the same confusion and excitement that Oppenheimer does?  Do we not aspire to pursue this goal everyday, little actions adding up to a better whole?  And do we not often fail in this goal?

The production itself serves as a constant reminder of time flowing and the implications of what lies past the closing curtain.  The set is predominantly made of large-scale cubbyholes, each equipped with a blackboard and a covering screen.  These holes become offices for scientists, marking out their theories and calculations.  When covered, they become projections screens, sometimes for maps of Japan’s cities primed for bombing and sometimes to display a bit of diversionary cinema for the weary crew.  And when left blank, they are a horrifying depiction of a shoji screen, standing in geometric perfection and contrast to the Americans grasping for power beneath them.  At times they are imprinted with silhouettes of people falling, of a burned out tree that slowly morphs into disfigured people.  And in a truly horrifying moment of depicting the inclement weather that delayed the first test, “black rain” pummeling a white sky.  Drawing such a stark parallel between the weather in New Mexico with the artificial weather created by the US bombing Japan can leave nothing but the deepest shivers.

So I offer up the notion that opera doesn’t always have to be a beautiful experience, at least not in the classic sense that my fellow opera-goers, most of whom checked out after Act I, seem so driven to have.  I’m not saying that it’s easy to stay awake for three and a half hours after a day’s work, and I’m certainly not saying that it’s easy to face our nation’s demons especially when they are history learned from a book for me and not necessarily so for many in the audience.

The woman next to me shared a story of an army friend who lost many in the bombings of Pearl Harbor.  All these years later, her friend still thinks dropping the atomic bomb was warranted (and many do as a means to end the war), but that in fact, five such bombs should have been unloaded to wipe out all of Japan.  At first I listened to this story thinking she was demonstrating disgust that such a mentality could still exist, but she went on, explaining how could one disagree when the Japanese have done numerous atrocities to the Koreans.  And this again sent shivers down my spine.  To sit through an opera of such magnitude and subject matter and to still walk out with a mentality of who cares, of stepping back while other countries tear each other apart, makes me sick.  It might be cliché to say, but we are indeed doomed to repeat history if we fail to learn from it.  And maybe an opera won’t change the world, but if it makes just a few of us think once in awhile about our actions, opens our mind to a topic that we often shun, and think about the significance of each of our actions, then I say that it is fully deserving of the term “art” and to be performed in the hallowed halls of The Met and therefore fully deserving of our complete and total attention, whether liked or not.