Doctor Atomic
Yesterday evening we went to Doctor Atomic, a new opera by John Cage presented by the San Francisco Opera. The subject is the making of the atomic bomb and the opera ends with the first test in New Mexico.
The musical score was beautiful. The plot was interesting and engrossing. The staging was simple, elegant, and very effective. (That was one big, ugly, mother of a bomb.) One thing seemed to be missing. The singers recited lines but they did not sing melodic songs or arias. If this is the wave of the future, I'm not sure I like it.
I suppose that like all new things this takes a while to get used to.
posted by James Moule @ 12:56 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Jim,
If you haven't read 109 East Palace, written by Jenent Conant which is about Los Alamos and Oppenheimer which had a strong connection to U of Cal @ Berkley.
bb
I have not read "109 East Palace" although I have heard of it. However this summer I did read "American Prometheus" the definitive biography of J. Robert Openheimer by Bird and Sherwin. It connects a lot of dots for me; not only Berkeley connections but also Pasadena and Cal Tech connections. I was very surprised at how many people and places in that book were familiar to me.
I only met Openheimer once, when I was a freshman at Cal Tech in 1952.
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