Doctor Atomic at The Coliseum

Doctor Atomic at The Coliseum

18 March, 2009
by: Lianne

I’d say that Doctor Atomic crept up on us pretty sudden. We barely had time to shift in our seats before the lights started to dim and my faint uncertainty and unformed discomfort at being at the opera re-routed into nothingness. That was lucky. I’d had an inkling of what to expect from American minimalist (post-minimalist?) composer John Adams, but was concerned I might find the libretto baffling and might even lack the capacity to understand an operatic performance. I spent a bit of time chewing over whether it was possible to force your way out of ignorance into the simple realm of not knowing without bringing all your bit-part preferences and prejudices with you. Then it began and I just tried to watch.

What I felt most strongly was that underlying the sequence of events – from the scientific outcome of particle experimentation right up to the final catastrophic climax of the dropping of the bomb – was the theme of personal struggle. Conflict, too, was channelled through the numerous exchanges between characters whose minimal contact and positioning across the stage was in turn suggestive of particle friction. It was even embedded into the physical backdrop of the set, insofar as the presence of a curtain-high wooden frame containing 30 or so men and women separated by walls emphasised their isolation from one another. Not all characters were necessarily shown to be aware of any inner conflict (straightforwardly insightful monologues were restricted mainly to Kitty Oppenheimer) but during conversations with one another you might question if they weren’t trying to convince themselves of their own dogmatic beliefs.



Visually speaking, this opera is brilliant. I found Brian MacDevitt’s lighting very effective (one scene masked in a deep yellow hue obviously signalled the coming of night but also communicated to me a real sense of the foreboding ills) and the set itself was one of the most impressive I’ve seen. Its centrepieces were surely the structure mentioned above and that of the shining overhead bomb, though the latter was actually on display for quite a short period of time – a monstrous creation that was dramatically unveiled, then uneasily removed from our watch and notable for its absence. The chorus were also put to particularly good use. Sometimes treated as a singular entity, they were naturally divided on gender lines and seemed to tread a symbolic line that rubbed chaos against order; one scene clustered together in heated discussion, and then later on broken apart, frenzied, running in the shrieking siren call of disorder.

….Which leads us to the music, which I found reasonably varied and enjoyable for its unpretentious ability to affect. At times it felt warningly soft and water-like, erupting in an understated show of power in something like the final scene. The libretto was the major let down for me, built on absurd lyrics which sometimes obscured my attempt to feel not just empathy but in fact anything at all for the characters (the ‘book’s bent rectangle’ anyone?). As a collective symbol of the disorder of human thought and the stricken sense in which human beings can dissolve into cause-and-effect machinery, Doctor Atomic was powerful. As an insight into the personal lives of those involved in the formation of the atomic bomb, it left me cold.

Doctor Atomic is running at The Coliseum until 20 March.

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Photo Credit: Catherine Ashmore
Courtesy of: English National Opera

Lianne