Adams: Doctor Atomic / Finley

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

GRAMOPHONE DVD OF THE MONTH - DECEMBER 2008
The longing to overcome human boundaries lead the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to begin an experiment that formed a threat to the whole of humanity, and whose scientific results still do today. The question of the moral implications of the atomic bomb is raised in John Adams’ opera, just as much as that of the influence on the private lives of the main characters. Doctor Atomic is the fifth work to result from almost twenty years of collaboration between the American composer and his fellow American director and Erasmus Prize-winner Peter Sellars.
Finley stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer in this DVD of John Adams’ opera Doctor Atomic, which focuses on the Manhattan project in the hours leading up to the first detonation of the atomic bomb. Reprising the role he sang at the opera’s 2005 premiere in San Francisco for this performance from De Nederlandse Opera, Finley is a dynamic, convincing character on stage. Peter Sellars’ libretto, drawing on historical documents, focuses not on a dramatic narrative but on the fears, anxieties and desires of figures involved in the project and Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty (strikingly portrayed by Jessica Rivera). Many of the most compelling moments, such as Oppenheimer’s intense, searing monologue at the end of the first act or Kitty’s at the beginning of the second, reveal more about the characters than the historical events they play out. Adams’ music, beautiful as it often is, does not romanticize the story, but undercuts the risks involved. These are not the sort of dangers signalled by clichéd bombastic orchestral gestures, but poetic, personal, and sometimes trivial moments of the characters’ lives that the bomb risks eradicating. The production is stark and simple, dominated by the physical bomb itself. Bonuses include interviews and a narrated synopsis. Reviewed by Seth Estrin. Reprinted from The Wholenote Magazine (www.thewholenote.com), Oct. 2008.

Price: $57.98

In stock
ships in 3 to 5 days