Adams: Doctor Atomic

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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. Doctor Atomic concerns itself with the work of J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists at the test site of the first atomic bomb outside Los Alamos, New Mexico during the lead-up to the first detonation. As Zero Hour relentlessly approaches and conditions become less and less favorable, individual tensions build feverishly and Oppenheimer and his staff struggle with the moral implications of their work on 'the Gadget', and the strong possibility of global annihilation. Recorded in high definition video and true surround sound, John Adams' fascinating, overwhelming score and Peter Sellars' forceful staging (and TV direction) portray Oppenheimer, exquisitely sung by Gerald Finley, as a profoundly troubled man, at odds with himself but moving inexorably forward, representative of the great ethical dilemmas of humanity itself.