It’s not often that my interest in Opera overlaps significantly with my career in Physics
And of course there’s that aria...it is truly wonderful, especially when sung as it was last night by the flawless Gerald Finley
Waiting for Detonation
The act ends with Gerald Finley’s Oppenheimer, alone on stage for the first time, singing John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14: “Batter my heart, three-person’d God.” The alien beauty of the words, the pounding orchestral accompaniment, and Finley’s lone, tortured voice combine in one of the most powerful moments I have ever experienced in an opera house...Gerald Finley has sung Oppenheimer in every performance of the opera since the premiere, and one can hardly imagine anyone else in the role, so commanding is his presence on stage.
