Audiences have their own favorites among the operas of John Adams, but Doctor Atomic (2005) has the advantage of being inarguably suited in its subject matter to the dimensions of grand opera: it takes for its topic the detonation of the first atomic bomb, with its first act occurring a month before the event and the second just before the successful test in New Mexico. The libretto by Peter Sellars, largely based on declassified documents, has been criticized as too choppy, but to these ears its shifts are what makes the ...
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Audiences have their own favorites among the operas of John Adams, but Doctor Atomic (2005) has the advantage of being inarguably suited in its subject matter to the dimensions of grand opera: it takes for its topic the detonation of the first atomic bomb, with its first act occurring a month before the event and the second just before the successful test in New Mexico. The libretto by Peter Sellars, largely based on declassified documents, has been criticized as too choppy, but to these ears its shifts are what makes the work: it called forth an extraordinarily varied score from Adams. The music includes settings of poetry by Baudelaire, Donne, and Muriel Rukeyser, as well as the Hindu Bhagavad Gita and a traditional Tewa Native American song. Adams responded with a score that encompasses all these and never interrupts the sense of gathering doom the listener feels. Female characters -- scientist Robert Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty, and Pasqualita, a Tewa maid -- are introduced, and they only...
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Add this copy of John Adams: Doctor Atomic to cart. $12.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by Nonesuch.
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