Opera musings

My Better Half got us tickets to a concert for last night, but couldn't go, so Eldest Daughter went. Finlandia, Hayden, Dr Atomic, Arutiunian, and Der Rosenkavalier, and a trumpet encore by Tine Helsing of a hilarious trumpet fanfare by somebody whose name I didn't catch. As advertised, she is able to play very well and to take the harsh edge out of the trumpet sound. All excellent, except for Dr. Atomic--which was interesting. In a century orchestras will still be playing Hayden.

The Dr Atomic sections were "In the Laboratory," "Panic," and "Trinity." I gather Adams was trying to reproduce some of the sounds and impressions of labs he'd either been in or watched in movies. I've worked in quite a few labs over the years, and usually the dominant
noises are from the air handling, vacuum pumps, and grad students trying to find the right connectors. And from yelling back and forth between the guy in the lift-a-loft and the fellow on the ground with the scope. (There's no way the big boom was going to be reproducible by an
orchestra.) I think Adams would have done better to provide an actual melody for the leitmotif of nuclear fission, though. Something that gets truncated by more chaotic sounds, but lasts longer and longer with each try until you get to hear it all.

Which left me wondering: who would have done Oppenheimer's story better as an opera? For some reason I can't imagine Bizet being interested in trying the project. In fact I think most of the classical era composers wouldn't be too excited about a "am I doing the right thing?" kind of story. A race to succeed against a human or supernatural villain, sure. Some might go for ending with a "What have we done?" moment. If the composer had the chops the result could be great. But a story of weather details or a story of self-doubt? They'd round file it.

So imagine you've given Wagner the general outline and a free hand (including permission to find a role for his favorite lady). Or Beethoven (assuming he ever finished it...).