No, not this blog post. But rather Ron Rosenbaum’s blast at Dr. Atomic, on the Slate site and linked today from ArtsJournal. The picture it paints is pretty devastating. Smart, educated, cultured writer isn’t an opera fan, but respects opera. He goes to the Dr. Atomic premiere at the Met, expecting serious art, and instead thinks he’s seen something empty and pretentious. Of course, you might say that this is just his own take, and you also might damn him for leaving at intermission, which means that he’s disqualified (by the normal standards that apply to critics) from writing a review.
But this isn’t a review. It’s a personal essay, and the motivation for walking out was how much Ronsenbaum hated what he’d seen. I think he’s on to something, the question being whether classical music has anything to say to the world outside it about contemporary life, and the answer, in this case, being no. Some people — maybe a lot of people — will disagree, of course, and one thing I noticed when I went (not to the first night, but to a later performance) was that the audience was clearly not an opera crowd.
That’s a good thing for classical music, and compares very favorably with the audience at the Santa Fe Opera this summer for Saariaho’s Adriana Mater, which was essentially the opera crowd, meaning (at least to me) that the piece didn’t register (in a very artsy city) as a serious piece of contemporary art. From that point of view, it’s good to see non-opera people at the Met for Dr. Atomic, just as it was to see them at Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten earlier this year, even if I didn’t like the piece at all. Bringing classical music into contemporary artistic life is a good thing, more important than my own taste.
Mostly I agree with Rosenbaum. I might not feel as strongly as he does, maybe because I’m a musician, and responded strongly to the music, which is mostly very strong, and sometimes powerful. Overall, Dr. Atomic is miles above most new operas, both musically, and in how contemporary it feels, and, even more, how contemporary it wants to be. But that makes me all the more upset at what I think it doesn’t do.
My view of it was echoed — or really pre-echoed, since I heard this before I saw the piece — by a friend, who said he’d grade it as a B, but that this was a problem, because it needed to be an A. I’d browsed through the vocal score, and had formed some tentative opinions, and suggested that I’d put my friend’s opinion a little more strongly — the opera, I thought, announced it was an A. And so of course it even more strongly needed to be that good.
When I saw it, I thought I’d sensed exactly what the problem is. The piece, for me, carries a constant subtext about its own significance. “This is strong, important art.” All that, of course, is reinforced by the opera’s presence at the Met, by its subject, by Adams’ reputation, and by the New Yorker printing part of Adams’ newly published memoir, to coincide with the production. But beyond all that, the piece itself seems to say that it’s important.
Which meant, for me, that it felt pretentious, especially since (and here’s where I most strongly agree with Rosenbaum) it doesn’t say very much. In fact, it’s very safe. It shows us something that’s well-known, and much discussed — the shock of the first atomic bomb, the feeling that something dangerous had been unleashed, and the doubts of Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the effort to create the bomb. None of this is new, to put it mildly, and the opera had nothing new to say about it. Oppenheimer is distressed. Well, we knew that, and no matter how powerfully he sings about that at the end of the first act — to the text of a John Donne poem which, like much of the libretto, only tangentially touches what was going on — we still haven’t learned or even felt anything that we (as a society) haven’t gone through many times before.
Reinforcing this is how obvious some moments on. About the Native American character (whom Rosenbaum very neatly skewers), the less said the better. An earth mother, who’s more connected to what matters than the shallow, white scientists — a cliché that made me roll my eyes. And, in a way even worse, the ending of the opera, with a Japanese recorded voice asking for help, after the bomb goes off.
This worked quite wonderfully as music — a stronger ending, purely sonically, than simply letting the orchestra die out. And, again musically, it balanced the recorded sound at the start of the opera. But it’s another cliché, and one with hoary antecedents all over popular culture. For instance: the final moment of Fail-Safe, a film about atomic war, where we see ordinary people going about their business — children playing — just before the Russians nuke New York. For instance: an early episode of the Battlestar Galactica remake, where the space command is forced to abandon some ships with many people on them, and, just before the robot Cylons nuke the ships, we see a child at play.
Yes, nuclear bombs have victims, but my two examples actually come off more strongly (at least to me) than the end of Dr. Atomic does, because in both cases the victims die because of genuinely difficult (and new) developments. We see things that actually could happen, dilemmas that might afflict us in the future, instead of (in Dr. Atomic) a well known piece of history from which we can’t learn anything we don’t already know. Better to have shown us something from a nuclear dilemma we might face today — North Korea cynically manipulating nuclear fears to gain some diplomatic points; the Pakistani scientist who wanted to give nuclear help to terrorists; Israel’s reported determination to use nuclear bombs (more readily, apparently, than other countries would — which isn’t a judgment, by the way, on the state of Israel, but might be something Israelis think about); officials of the former Soviet Union who might have thought of selling (or maybe did sell) nuclear material to terrorists.
All these things are genuine dilemmas in our current world, and there are many more of them. (The India/Pakistan nuclear faceoff; the constant nuclear readiness of the US and Russia, and so much more.) The opera is supposed to be about a Faustian bargain — you gain knowledge, you gain power, but there are consequences. We now live in the troubled wake of that bargain, but what strikes me — and could be a powerful subject for a novel or an opera or a play — is how little people think about the consequences, about the meaning of any kind of nuclear war. Do the North Koreans or Iranians or Israelis or the American military or Pakistanis or Al Quaeda or the Russian military think much about what nuclear attacks would actually be like? Do they think about the victims?
I’m guessing that our sensibilities have been dulled, through long familiarity (and also from how lucky we’ve been not to have any nuclear attacks since Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Maybe, if that’s really true, Dr. Atomic is a healthy wakeup call, but on the other hand, it might help to lull us further, because in a way it pats us on the back (and pats itself even more) for being so concerned. There’s nothing in it that could help us figure out what Israel (for instance) ought to do, if its back is to the wall, with its survival hanging by a thread.
About the music. For me the most successful music comes in the second act, which has been criticized because nothing happens. Essentially we wait until the bomb is tested for the first time, with concerns about the weather (and larger concerns about whether the bomb will work at all) coming off as very minor. But opera is a perfect medium for drama in which nothing happens, because the music can carry us. Adams’ music triumphantly does, and then tops itself with the moments leading right up to the explosion. I think — and I really mean it — that this is, in purely visceral terms, one of the most powerful musical sequences in any opera.
But the music that does all this is instrumental, or rather it’s the orchestral music that’s powerful enough to carry the opera. I found the vocal music more pedestrian, both when I looked through the score, and when I heard it. It’s not awful, and sets the words with a fair amount of finesse. But it doesn’t have much character — one person on stage sounds pretty much like another, except for obvious things, like moments where words might be highlighted to make a sarcastic point, or sequences of lyrical introspection. There’s no inner character, no sense that the people on stage have distinct personalities, no sense of who they are, or really that they’re anyone at all, except (again) for the very broadest strokes of external characterization.
One exception is Oppenheimer’s John Donne aria, which ends the first act (and it’s surely one not-so-secret secret of the opera’s success that the endings of both acts are powerful), and which really does succeed (for me) as vocal music, though as drama it seemed to say nothing more than “I’m suffering! I’m suffering!” But it said this with a lot of musical refinement. I wonder, if the opera had been called Oppenheimer (in place of the rather coy title it actually has), whether many people then might have expected more from it, if they’d have asked whether anything it says about its title character is really new or cogent.
As a footnote, I’ll add that similar questions — and reactions similar to Rosenbaum’s — surfaced, at least to me, at the long-ago New York premiere of Adams’ first opera, Nixon in China. All the music professionals I spoke to at intermission were tremendously impresssed: “At last an opera that really says something.” While dance and theater people I spoke to — maybe because they were more used to seeing art in their fields with some contemporary relevance — weren’t happy at all: “What this opera says about Nixon is completely wrong.” It’s like the fabled talking dog. After you get used to it talking, you start to look at what it says.
Adams’ second opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, of course really does go into new and tricky territory, trying to get inside the minds of terrorists, And therefore it’s had a lot of trouble. I don’t mean to say that controversy is any proof of value, especially artistic value, but I’m struck again by how safe Dr. Atomic is, how there’s nothing in it anybody could object to. (Except, maybe, extreme militarists, who might insist that any hesitation in the possible use of America’s nuclear arsenal would be a kind of treason. But such people, if they still exist, haven’t been part of America’s national debate for quite a while.)
And that, for me, should raise some doubts. The opera, in the end, seems far too easy to be saying things with any chance of being as important as the subtext of the work (again, at least to me) keeps telling us they are.
Thank God someone finally said it ! Although this work in particular I’ll still need to hear and judge for myself.
But in general ‘ordinary’ people are not allowed to critique fine art in any form. I’ve been told that I’ve been in no position to cast judgement on some music because I’m not part of the arts community that produced it. This is such a widespread belief that large parts of the general public believe it too. Talk about an attitude that limits your audience.
Three cheers for Ron Rosenbaum :^)
Very interesting post. I like the opera, but I think you make some very valid points. Perhaps, like your friend, I would give it a B (maybe a B+). The music is strong in some points and yet doesn’t succeed in others. I haven’t seen this production, so I can’t comment on the recent changes from the earlier version – but it sounds as if the overall thrust of the opera hasn’t changed.
In the process of working on a opera I will take your comments onboard. We are very much approaching this project from the vantage point of what film and television do in terms of similar entertainment. In a world where the audience has more choices for entertainment, and more versed in what’s possible, opera can’t afford to just be opera anymore.
What I haven’t seen addressed in this discussion, was the total failure of Adams and collaborators to create a theatrical experience. Italian operas are a great deal more than their “silly librettos.” Who can leave Rigoletto or Madame Butterfly without being thoroughly moved? I see no evidence that anyone involved in this project gave a moment’s thought to the real task of opera — to bring the audience on an emotional journey using a mix of powerful forces. It makes no difference that the opera had nothing new to say about Oppenheimer; that’s not what opera is supposed to do, it’s not an intellectual essay. Powerful themes were in fact raised: Oppenheimer’s doubt, the conflicts in his marriage, but the libretto supplied no interaction between the characters (other than an exchange about the General’s diet), no emotional development of any kind. Three hours of dread about a foregone conclusion does not count as drama, and ending it with the voice of a Japanese woman was as cheesy as could be.
Adams writes some fine music for orchestra, but I agree, hasn’t any feel whatsoever for the voice and vocal music. It goes further than lack of characterization in the vocal writing: there is no connection between the inflection and portent of the words and the way Adams sets it, just generic 20th century leaping around the singers’ range and square rhythms that fail to capture the inflection of speech.
Adams is a great guy, but I am sorely disappointed that an artist of his calibre can fail to address the central aim of what the operatic art is all about.
There are opera composers and there are instrumental composers and never shall the twain meet. (except for Mozart)
A few disjunct points –
John Adams is a reluctant opera composer: he doesn’t like operatic singing (hence the amplification of both singers and orchestra in the SF premiere of Doctor Atomic) and his librettos…well, I agree about the dramatic weaknesses in Atomic, which I like very much overall, and I hated the libretto of A Flowering Tree so much that it kept me from really hearing the music.
A big problem with the classical music world today is that we want every piece to be an A+ piece. In the 18th and 19th centuries, lots of operas failed; they were put on a couple of times and were then lost to history. Some got revived successfully later; others weren’t any good and disappeared. There is less room for failure and for a learning curve now, and for most composers it takes time to develop a feel for the dramatic. So I am not convinced that the argument about whether Doctor Atomic is an A or B work is especially valid. Every work is not a masterpiece. It’s unreasonable for us to expect that.
In San Francisco and in NY, I know a lot of people who are not opera or classical music fans who are turning out for Doctor Atomic. They want to see for themselves; they respond to the music and the libretto in very different ways. So I don’t take your point, Greg, about the need for relevance, connection, etc. This opera is attracting people who don’t normally go to classical music performances. I’m glad they’re not reaching the same conclusions you are and just skipping it because it’s not contemporary or relevant enough.
And one last disjunct point: the opera seemed more dramatic to me in the HD broadcast, and I take that to be because the HD director’s cutting and panning and so on were able to create a kind of cinematic drama that is not available on the stage when you’re in the house.
In addition to Lisa’s telling points, especially about everything needing to be a masterpiece or else we dismiss it, I’d like to note something about your comment about the people outside the music field not talking about the music.
In popular music, especially live events, the experience is first about the lifestyle, second about the lyrics, and third, if at all, about the music.
Also, aren’t all markets niche markets these days?
Greg, yeah, I’d say you didn’t make that point so clearly. Everything Adams writes is composed with great confidence, as well it should be. Of course it’s going to declare its quality and pedigree. And lots of Doctor Atomic is gloriously beautiful, and earns that A.
I think you are wrong to say that new operas get a pass. Maybe you haven’t heard that many at the Met in the last ten years. Harvey Milk, Dangerous Liaisons, and A Streetcar Named Desire weren’t particularly well received. I thought The Bonesetter’s Daughter sucked (haven’t blogged it yet, being way behind). Appomattox got mixed reviews; my own was positive but on the other hand, I doubt it will be staged elsewhere, and it certainly won’t have the string of performances Doctor Atomic is getting.
Expanding a bit on what Steve says, so what if Adriana Mater attracted primarily the opera crowd in Santa Fe? Do you critize jazz performances for only attracting jazz fans?
You need to look at Matthew Guerrierri’s posting some time back about the age of the audience relative to the overall age of the population. He found some interesting things.
A movie that feeble would most likely never have been made. New operas get produced, in cases when the composer doesn’t have the faintest idea how to write an opera. That simply doesn’t happen in most other arts, or in popular culture.
I’m not convinced that your assertion about feeble movies is correct, mostly because you and I see the good stuff, the stuff that has been vetted by agents and studios and widely distributed and reviewed. Probably we make choices about which movies we see that result in our seeing the good movies. It’s a fraction of the movies that get made, and I have seen more than a few commercial films that were barely successful. Yes, you do have the weasel words “most likely” in there.
You are, however, pointing to real problems in how new operas are developed.
1. Composer don’t have many chances to experiment and possibly fail because opera is so expensive to produce. I mean, would you have hired Richard Wagner to write an opera if you’d only heard Die Feen? (I’m aware that he produced it on spec, but the point is that he lived at a time and place when he could produce an opera on spec.) But the opportunity to fail is a necessary part of developing new works or expertise in any given musical area. A young composer has way more possibilities for getting a new string quartet performed, and learning from that, than getting an opera performed.
2. The movie parallel might be: film is cheap and you can experiment using digital video in ways that might be tough to do musically. That is, an aspiring filmmaker can make a lot of 15 or 30 minute films, screen them for friends, and get useful feedback. Not so easy to do with an opera. There aren’t a lot of workshop possibilities out there, plus iterating an opera is tough because of the cost. Verdi had chances to revise in rehearsal and between productions, but that came when he was the greatest opera composer in Europe.
Previn’s a pretty big star as a conductor, though I would say not in the first tier. However, I’m not sure whether celebrity is the right measure of whether someone gets to take the plunge in a new artistic area. Lorin Maazel and 1984 – is that a good parallel to the Madonna movie? He even financed it himself.
3. Not many intendants have experience in developing new operas and cultivating composers. David Gockley has more of this experience than any other director of an American opera company, and he still didn’t pull the plug on Bonesetter. Why not? Well, as you get closer to the premiere, it gets harder and harder to do so. And, you know, while I thought it sucked, it sold out. A purely commercial success that brings in lots of non-opera-goers (and it did) is still a success – even if I never want to hear another note by Stewart Wallace. (I should note that he turned Bonesetter down in Houston, and took a chance on it because Tam is a local celebrity in SF. Perhaps this ties in with your point about Madonna.)
4. You can’t make a living writing operas, which was possible in particular times and places and isn’t now. See the above, about expense, etc. There is no pipeline, there are no generally accepted stylistic standards, etc. How are composer to learn this craft?
About Gatsby, Harbison is a very good composer, and it wasn’t his first opera – I believe there is a Winter’s Tale. I don’t know what it would take for him to write a great opera; I’m not even sure if Gatsby is a good operatic subject or not.
As far as opera and cultural impact, or at least visibility, you’re skipping over the 50s, 60s, and even 70s, when opea was much more visible on TV than it is now. Beverly Sills on Sesame Street, the Bell Telephone Hour, etc., etc. Of course new operas aren’t making a lot of general cultural impact. There aren’t enough of them. See the above.