Doctor Atomic, a new opera about to open at the Met, brings nuclear proliferation, "rogue states" and the terrorists' dream of a dirty bomb back to the first "ground zero"
6 For Adams, there is absolutely nothing out of character when Sellars puts the words of Baudelaire in Oppenheimer's mouth in the final moments of the countdown to "the shot:"
"No!... Peter Brown/Scientific American
5 Oppenheimer ( right, shown here with Leslie Groves ), of course, will go on to earn the gratitude of a grateful nation for his scientific leadership of the Manhattan Project, for the weapon that ended World War II... Courtesy the Department of Energy
4 For Adams, the words that matter most are those of "Oppie," as J. Robert Oppenheimer was called--the role that baritone Gerald Finley ( pictured here ) created for the world premier of Doctor Atomic by the San Francisco Opera in 2005... Courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera
3 That one image--among many others--should settle any argument against the wisdom of the decision by composer John Adams ( pictured here ) and librettist Peter Sellars to rely on the words of the real historical figures--and the words of the poets they cherished--to re-tell what has become the origins myth of our time, the story of the birth of the Atomic Age... Courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera
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2 Atomic fission, as we all know, will soon win that struggle. On July 16, 1945--tomorrow morning, in the timeline of the opera--the first test of the atomic bomb will light up the New Mexican desert with the explosive power of 15,000 tons of TNT... Los Alamos National Laboratory
1 A frightful sphere, huge, gray, bristling with wires, harshly lit in white, is lowered on a cable from far above the stage at the Metropolitan Opera.
By this time, the very beginning of Act 2 of Doctor Atomic , no one in the house has any doubt that the object is "the gadget," as the atomic scientists call it: The Bomb... Peter Brown/Scientific American
