Enjoying this excerpt?

Subscribe to medici.tv Premium to watch the full version!

John Adams, Doctor Atomic
- I, 1: "We believed that "Matter can be neither created nor destroyed""
- I, 2: "Am I in your light?"
- I, 3: "What the hell is wrong with the weather?"
- II, 1: "Wary of time O it seizes the soul tonight"
- II, 2: "In the north the cloud-flower blossoms"
- II, 3: "The program has been plagued from the start"

Certain chapters are not available. Thank you for your understanding.

opera Adams' Doctor Atomic

Lawrence Renes, Peter Sellars – Gerald Finley (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Thomas Glenn (Robert Wilson), Jessica Rivera (Kitty Oppenheimer) – De Nederlandse Opera

Adams' Doctor Atomic Lawrence Renes, Peter Sellars – Gerald Finley (J. Robert Oppenheimer), Thomas Glenn (Robert Wilson), Jessica Rivera (Kitty Oppenheimer) – De Nederlandse Opera

About

John Adams and Peter Sellars' opera about Robert Oppenheimer, at the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam.

Which better subject John Adams and Peter Sellars could have chosen to denonciate the fall of the modern world? The atomic bomb and its inventor, Robert Oppenheimer (Gerald Finley), are in the middle of the action of this opera, which premiered in 2005 at the San Francisco Opera. After him, the world will never be the way it used to be, and is inexorably shifting towards the nuclear era. And yet, this opera focuses on common and universal problems, including love stories and broken hearts.

The title of this opera reminds us of the famous movie by Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), and features fantastic artists such as Gerald Finley who created the role in 2005: it is without any doubt a masterpiece which "modernizes" the issues on the lyric planet.

Casting

Peter Sellars | Stage director
Adrianne Lobel | Set designer
Dunya Ramicova | Costumes
James F. Ingalls | Lighting

Gerald Finley | J. Robert Oppenheimer
Jessica Rivera | Kitty Oppenheimer
Eric Owens | General Leslie Groves
Richard Paul Fink | Edward Teller
James Maddalena | Jack Hubbard
Thomas Glenn | Robert Wilson
Jay Hunter Morris | Captain James Nolan
Ellen Rabiner | Pasqualita

Koor Van De Nederlandese Opera
Martin Wright | Chorus master

Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest
Lawrence Renes | Music director

Program

John Adams, Doctor Atomic
- I, 1: "We believed that "Matter can be neither created nor destroyed""
- I, 2: "Am I in your light?"
- I, 3: "What the hell is wrong with the weather?"
- II, 1: "Wary of time O it seizes the soul tonight"
- II, 2: "In the north the cloud-flower blossoms"
- II, 3: "The program has been plagued from the start"

Details

Directed by:
- Peter Sellars
Venue: De Nederlandse Opera (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Production date: 2007
Duration: 2 h 51 min
Production: © De Nederlandse Opera / NPS
Available version(s): EN
Available subtitle(s) : EN, FR, ES, DE

Want to watch the full video?

Go Premium

Play again

Appears in

Musics from the Americas The World's Greatest Concert Halls Music, History, and Politics Contemporary Music The Faust legend in music The Best Of American Composers Contemporary opera War and peace in music

opera

Glyndebourne

2010

Mozart's Don Giovanni

Jonathan Kent (stage director), Vladimir Jurowski (conductor) – With Gerald Finley (Don Giovanni), Luca Pisaroni (Leporello), Kate Royal (Donna Elvira)...