The Long LineThe Long Line

John Adams

Doctor Atomic

Composed 2007

Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with a libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. The work focuses on how leading figures at Los Alamos dealt with the great stress and anxiety of preparing for the test of the first atomic bomb, the "Trinity" test.

In 2007, a documentary was made by Jon H. Else about the creation of the opera and collaboration between Adams and Sellars, titled Wonders Are Many.

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Movements

  1. Overture

Act 1

  1. Am I in your light?
  2. Batter my heart
  3. Electrical storm
  4. First of all, let me say
  5. Five hundred US Superfortresses are raining incendiary bombs
  6. General, you are bearing up with remarkable fortitude
  7. Get them out of here. From now on I'm making my own weather predictions
  8. I have been preoccupied with many matters
  9. I'll sign the report, sir
  10. Long let me inhale, deeply
  11. Many of us are inclined to say
  12. No. Before the bomb is used
  13. The end of June 1945
  14. The motive of it all was loneliness
  15. The nation's fate
  16. The test must go on as scheduled
  17. This is a petition
  18. We are bedeviled by faulty detonators
  19. We surround the plutonium core
  20. What if it's a dud?
  21. What the hell is wrong with the weather?
  22. With respect, sir, anyone with good eyes

Act 2

  1. A delay in issuing the Potsdam ultimatum
  2. And love which contains all human spirit
  3. Chorus: At the sight of this
  4. Countdown
  5. Easter Eve 1945
  6. Edward, the test will be delayed an hour
  7. Fermi is taking wagers
  8. I just finished reading The Magic Mountain
  9. I've dreamed the same dream
  10. I've spent a great deal of time indulging in controlled fantasies
  11. In the midnight, in the flame-brilliant midnight
  12. In the north the cloud-flower blossoms
  13. Interlude: Rain over the Sangre de Cristo
  14. It's midnight, Jack
  15. Lieutenant Bush. Keep a weather eye on Oppenheimer
  16. Panic
  17. That's their signal
  18. The Program has been plagued from the start
  19. The only saviors are the ham sandwiches
  20. The sky is clear to the east
  21. The winter dawned, but the dead did not come back
  22. To keep the weakness secret
  23. To the farthest west, the sea and the striped country
  24. To what benevolent demon do I owe the joy of being thus surrounded
  25. Zero minus two minutes

Elsewhere

← All of the composer’s works