Dr Atomic links

John Adams goes nuclear with Doctor Atomic

Preview

Doctor Atomic: Opera's biggest bang:  Film-maker Penny Woolcock is making her stage debut with an adaptation of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic. She talks about Shakespeare, hip hop and being moved to tears by music.

Uncommon man: John Adams's operas have laid the foundations of a distinctively American classical tradition. But, outside Carnegie Hall, the United States remains a nation profoundly uncomfortable with high culture

Big bang theory: Dr Oppenheimer was a brilliant, passionate man who invented a terrible weapon. Gerald Finley talks to Martin Kettle about bringing him to life

Doctor Atomic: Opera goes nuclear

John Adams: Doctor Atomic from Musical Criticism -  a long and somewhat technical piece, but worth a read, I think, despite sentences such as They appear as facile, dichotomised representations of moral alterity and the forbidding white text on blue background. Awards four stars

(In) Batter my heart... Gerald Finley, suddenly recognises the portentousness of his actions and pleads with the three-person'd God to 'break, blow, burn and make me new'. Adams thrusts upon the audience a monumental paragraph in D minor (a stark contrast to the previous unstable chromaticism), a passage of stormy inner turmoil to match any in recent music theatre. Finley, ...sputters out this poem, violently razing his previous arrogance, unexpectedly bringing to the fore the moral complexity of the events around him. Finley is magnetic throughout the work, his stooping self-assurance is a constant thread of certitude, and his thundering yet curiously restrained recitations carry the violence of the subject forward up until the successful test.

Dr Atomic performed by the ENO at the London Coliseum, review: John Adams's opera about the atomic bomb doesn't quite ignite.

Gerald Finley sings magnificently as Oppenheimer, even if his expression of slightly baffled anguish becomes monotonous

A few atoms short of critical mass

The excellent Gerald Finley...sings with a magnetic beauty that his unsympathetic character hardly deserves

Dr Atomic - English National Opera

at the heart of this piece is the performance of Gerald Finley... With effortless fluidity Finley’s melodic and pure baritone voice transports his feeling throughout the Coliseum, drawing all into Oppenheimer’s fall from assured proud excitement to tight grief as, in the eclipse like shadow of his bomb, he begins to awaken to the full potential of his creation crying ‘Batter my heart, three-person’d God’.

This is a tour de force moment of operatic composition with score, libretto, performance and setting leaving a blinding imprint on the mind of every person who lives under the shadow of atomic war fare today.

Booming voices in Doctor Atomic 4 stars

Gerald Finley is magnificent here and throughout as the tortured Oppenheimer.

Doctor Atomic at the London Coliseum 4 stars

Silverfin's review

Finley is becoming one of my favourite singers, and was a charisma machine in complete command of his role, showing a three-dimensional character conflicted about his success in developing a world-changing engine of destruction. ‘Batter my heart’ was probably the highlight of the evening.

MusicOMH's review

Batter My Heart...proved the musical highpoint of the first act in the work's UK premiere, Gerald Finley singing with barely concealed dramatic passion in the title role, while the orchestra, under the direction of Lawrence Renes, through out a particularly biting accompanying sequence.

Adams Doctor Atomic, English National Opera, London Coliseum

This aria, heart-rendingly sung by Gerald Finley, is the detonation in Oppenheimer’s soul which triggers the big bang. You can already find it on You Tube and it might just be the single most beautiful thing Adams has ever written.

Doctor Atomic is an opera, not a history lesson

Doctor Atomic, Coliseum, London

for eight glorious minutes it's just one man and his gadget and the first great operatic aria of the 21st century: "Batter my heart, three-person'd God".

Doctor Atomic (white text on black background)

Teenage Theatre Critic (who must surely be due a name-change sometime soon!)

"Batter My Heart" is an air of such quality that it could (and I dearly hope will) happily sit in the annals of great operatic numbers.

Gerald Finley has owned this role since the premiere of the opera in 2005 and I can't imagine a finer performance. Finley has starred in an eclectic series of roles in London recently and this is yet another stunner to add to the list. The role doesn't sound a particularly difficult one vocally but that might just be a result of his marvellously potent baritone and confident delivery. His diction was impeccable (as was that of most of the cast) and his acting unsurpassed. In the pantheon of great performances, Finley's Oppenheimer ranks high.

A big bang

Gerald Finley plays the troubled J Robert Oppenheimer, whose "Batter My Heart" setting is surely the finest aria written since Puccini. Over a huge range, Finley's voice has no discernible gear-shifts or squeezed notes. His seriousness and sensitivity are affecting.