Organization

Singer

Baritone

Gerald Finley

Robert Oppenheimer

Mezzo-soprano

Kristine Jepson

Kitty Oppenheimer

Bass

Eric Owens

General Leslie Groves

Richard Paul Fink

Edward Teller

James Maddalena

Jack Hubbard

Tenor

Thomas Glenn

Robert Wilson

Jay Hunter Morris

Kapitän James Nolan

Beth Clayton

Pasqualita

Conductor

Lawrence Renes

Stage director

Peter Sellars

Set designer

Adrianne Lobel

Costume designer

Dunya Ramicova

Lighting designer

James F Ingalls

Choreographer

Lucinda Childs

De Nationale Opera

Orchestra

Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest

Doctor Atomic

Amsterdam

Netherlands

Dutch National Opera & Ballet

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds..." John Adams and Peter Sellars's opera about Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, stuns at the Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam.

What better subject could Adams and Sellars have chosen to illustrate the fall of the modern world? The atomic bomb and its inventor, Robert Oppenheimer (Gerald Finley), are at the heart of the action in this opera, which premiered in 2005 at the San Francisco Opera. The world after Oppenheimer, inexorably shifting toward the nuclear era, will never be the same again—yet Sellars's immersive staging works also on a human scale, with love stories and broken hearts.

The title of this opera reminds us of the beloved film by Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), and features fantastic artists such as Gerald Finley who originated the role. It is, without any doubt, a seismic masterpiece of modern opera.

Doctor Atomic Adams,J

Public

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading