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Amid renewed nuclear concerns, 'Doctor Atomic' by Santa Fe Opera is newly topical

The opera dramatizes the hours leading up to the first experimental atomic bomb explosion, in July 1945, in New Mexico.

SANTA FE — We had a nice long stretch when nuclear war seemed hardly a concern. But then came worrying about new nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and threats against them from the White House.

Which made this a good time to revisit the 2005 John Adams-Peter Sellars opera Doctor Atomic, about the invention and test of the first atomic bomb. It was doubly appropriate for Santa Fe Opera, 35 miles south of the Los Alamos laboratories where the bomb was developed and 215 miles north of the Alamogordo desert where the first bomb was detonated. Unexpected drama at the Thursday night performance at the Crosby Theatre will doubtless become another Santa Fe Opera legend.

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The opera dramatizes the 24 hours leading up to the first experimental atomic detonation in July 1945 — three weeks before atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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We meet the scientists who've developed the bomb, their conversations based on historic notes and FBI recordings: the brainy, systematic J. Robert Oppenheimer (sung by Ryan McKinny); the rougher hewn and more apprehensive Edward Teller (Andrew Harris); and Robert Wilson (Benjamin Bliss), deeply concerned by the bomb's destructive potential and moral implications. They don't know if this new thing will work, or fizzle or set off a worldwide firebomb.

Ben Bliss as Robert Wilson in "Doctor Atomic" at the Santa Fe Opera.
Ben Bliss as Robert Wilson in "Doctor Atomic" at the Santa Fe Opera.(Ken Howard / Santa Fe Opera)
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Gen. Leslie Groves (Daniel Okulitch) is the Army commander determined to see the explosion happen, at whatever cost, but meteorologist Frank Hubbard (Tim Mix) warns that a thunderstorm may wreak havoc. Capt. James Nolan (Mackenzie Gotcher), in charge of the Los Alamos post hospital, warns about radiation exposure.  Oppenheimer's wife Kitty (Julia Bullock) and housekeeper Pasqualita (Meredith Arwady) add feminine perspectives.

There's real theatrical material here, and tense scenes among the scientists are gripping. But although the Oppenheimers were fond of poetry, long poetic quotations in Sellars' libretto feel like inorganic — indeed, pretentious —intrusions.

Ryan McKinny (Robert Oppenheimer) and Julia Bullock (Kitty Oppenheimer) in Santa Fe Opera's...
Ryan McKinny (Robert Oppenheimer) and Julia Bullock (Kitty Oppenheimer) in Santa Fe Opera's "Doctor Atomic."(Ken Howard / Santa Fe Opera)
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Oppenheimer seduces Kitty with a Charles Baudelaire prose poem, in English translation. Oppenheimer's tortured aria on John Donne's "Batter my heart, three person'd God" seems pretty gratuitous. It doesn't help that Sellars, stage director as well as librettist, has McKinny deliver it while rolling and writhing on the stage floor.

Kitty's contribution to poetic pretentiousness is a long excerpt from Muriel Rukeyser's "Easter Eve 1945." All three poetic texts bristle with so much convoluted imagery that there's no hope of making sense of them in an opera.

A thunderstorm nearly scuttled the original detonation. And a thunderstorm, with rain blowing horizontally into the theater, cut loose soon into the opera's Thursday night performance. Serious lines including "What the hell is wrong with the weather?" provoked great guffaws from the audience — hardly the intended response.

String players fled from the front of the orchestra pit to protect their instruments. For much of the first act, Adams' signature burbles, jabs and washes of sound were restricted to winds, brass and percussion. Somehow the performance went on, and the weather settled down for Act 2.

This wasn't an ideal situation for experiencing the opera, considerably revised since its 2005 San Francisco Opera premiere, but I was surprised how little my reactions had changed. I still find Doctor Atomic alternately compelling and tiresome. But, with designer David Gropman's big shiny-ball bomb suspended over everything, the cast is a strong one.

The Santa Fe Opera Chorus in "Doctor Atomic."
The Santa Fe Opera Chorus in "Doctor Atomic."(Ken Howard / Santa Fe Opera)

Bravo to conductor Matthew Aucoin for sustaining the musical action in such trying circumstances. The chorus, prepared by Susanne Sheston, sang assuredly. Dancers, choreographed by Emily Johnson, jerked, jittered and spun to no obvious purpose. Residents of area pueblos recreated Indian corn dances, which also felt like strained additions.

Formerly classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell continues covering the beat as a freelance writer. Classical music coverage at The News is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. The News makes all editorial decisions.