They Dropped the Bomb on Us–And We Paid For it

I survived. We survived, BC and I, the bomb dropped on San Francisco in the form of John Adams’ opera, Doctor Atomic. At least Monteverdi and Strauss have interesting and complex music to enjoy when the libretto gets silly, but I can’t remember one melodic passage to sing in the shower tomorrow. And. Speaking of. The language. The language. The language was. It WAS so. It WAS so. Difficult. To follow AND so. Uninteresting. Frustrating in the way that it had completely no relation to the way the music was structured, presented in fragmented segments that were almost impossible to follow and whose emotional tone was neither illuminated nor supported by the music. I supposed they did relate, the music and the libretto, in their fragmented distance from the action and meaning. And what was it about? Really. The beginning of the end of humankind? Well, what about it? What about these men who created such horror? There were essentially no narrative or moral conflicts, only a collage of brief interactions and speculations that led to a bright light at the end and the sound of a Japanese girl’s voice pleading something unintelligible. Please. Yoko’s “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss” says more. Aside from the ineffective, simplistic, and trite placement of a baby crib under the Bomb (what has happened to the avant-garde?), I did love the spare staging, though, which incorporated long shadows and a disorienting rising and falling mountainous horizon.