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John Adams,  Doctor Atomic: Soloists, ENO Orchestra & Chorus, Lawrence Renes (conductor) English National Opera, Coliseum, London 28.2.2009 (CR)

Conductor: Lawrence Renes
Production: Penny Woolcock
Set Designer: Julian Crouch
Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber
Lighting Designer: Brian MacDevitt
Choreographer: Andrew Dawson
Video Design: Leo Warner & Mark Grimmer for Fifty Nine Productions Ltd.
Sound Designer: Mark Grey

Cast:

Edward Teller: Brindley Sherratt
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Gerald Finley
Robert Wilson: Thomas Glenn
Kitty Oppenheimer: Sasha Cooke
General Leslie Groves: Jonathan Veira
Frank Hubbard: Roderick Earle
Captain James Nolan: Christopher Gillett
Pasqualita: Meredith Arwady


Set at the end of the Second World War, Doctor Atomic is John Adams’ opera about the testing of the atomic bomb, focussing on its inventor, J. Robert Oppenheimer. With a libretto by Peter Sellars, the opera’s first production was performed in San Francisco, Amsterdam and Chicago, while the present ENO production is a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, which recently  received its premiere in New York.

This was a mixed evening, with stunning moments interspersed with some disappointments. The staging and set design was mostly excellent; the cube set was highly effective, as was the simple but elegant use of projections and shadows. The sound was generally good, with the live sounds mixing well with electronics.

John Adams’ score was imaginative and well conceived, with some wonderful orchestral effects and dramatic use of silence and volume. His minimalist style was still in evidence, with accents and pulsations and repeated rhythmic and melodic fragments, but the rich harmonies were expressive and almost verging on the romantic.  The challenges faced by the orchestra were considerable but under the baton of Lawrence Renes, who was making his UK opera debut, they were, for me, the stars of the show, with some impressively precise rhythmic and technical playing and some wonderfully expressive moments. The singing was excellent throughout, with Brindley Sherratt’s Edward Teller a particular favourite. Gerald Finley was a convincing Oppenheimer and the low tones of Meredith Arwady’s rich alto voice will haunt me for a long time. Adams’ use of the chorus was also particularly impressive, especially the dramatic entries of the female voices in the second half, which contrast beautifully with the essentially male-dominated soloists.

There were some unforgettable moments, especially Adams’ setting of the John Donne Sonnet “batter my heart” at the end of Act 1. The style was faintly reminiscent of Purcell, with Adams’ sudden use of tonality providing contrast and tension. This was a deeply moving and expressive moment, which I would happily listen to over and over. Gerald Finley’s performance here was particularly impressive and left everything that came after it to pale into insignificance.

My main reservations with the evening came mostly through the narrative and the text, which left Adams to create tension through his music. The story is historically accurate, and tells of the scientists gathered in New Mexico to create the first atomic bomb, in a race with the enemy to be the first to get results. The opera deals with the month before the first bomb test, and refers to many of the issues surrounding the project, including the political pressure, the secrecy of the testing and the scientist’s own doubts that the project would succeed. As an educational project, introducing the story to teenagers, this would be fascinating and extremely worthy. However, I felt that not enough was made of some of the aspects brought up in the programme notes, such as the sense of community between the scientists, the things they did to fill the time and the political pressures to succeed. These things were all touched upon, although in a disjointed way which did little to add to the overall events. A discussion about the General’s diet seemed particularly incongruent with its surrounding events. The text is sourced from various historical documents, which assist with the accuracy of the tale, but sometimes come across as musically clumsy – how many operas, for example, use the word icosahedrons?

The long slow build up to the final moments of the opera served to lead me to feel the frustration of the scientists, in terms of them sitting around and waiting for something out to happen. If this was what the creators were trying to achieve, they did an excellent job, although at times it seemed like the parts were overacted in order to fill in for the lack of action.

I also found myself wondering with whom, if anyone, our sympathies should lie. The plot did little to reveal the inner workings of any particular character, and even Oppenheimer, on whom the attention is focussed, was a slightly distant character who did not command much empathy. Kitty Oppenheimer’s role, although superbly sung by the young soprano Sasha Cooke, was particularly difficult to comprehend.

Carla Rees


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