However, Adams does not consider his music to be centered on political or moral criticism despite the subjects of his operas made in collaboration with Sellars. “It’s going to take another few decades for the whole ‘CNN opera’ reference to be laid finally to rest” (May 229). “I’m not interested in lecturing my audience, teaching a social parable in the manner of a Brecht Lehrstück” (235). While Adams certainly is aware of the moral conflict involving the atomic bomb, he does not explicitly speak of a critical agenda, but he does speak of a more abstract ecological conflict and the scientists’ moral dilemma.
In an interview in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sellars echoes the same sentiment: “We live in an age where everything is so heavily propagandized and organized to convince you of something and to make you buy something. . . . My job is not to tell you what to think, it’s just to make you think” (“The Bulletin Interview: Peter Sellars” 15). But in an interview distributed on the DVD of the 2007 performance of the opera, he expressed a strongly critical opinion: “[N]ot one nuclear weapon is a good thing. . . . So, to once again bring up the atomic topic, to put it on people’s minds. . . . Everybody is just happily shopping, and nobody really thinks about it” (Sellars).
There are many aspects of Doctor Atomic which one might interpret as aimed towards nuclear arms criticism. Oppenheimer’s conversion from his initial refusal to hear other scientists’ objections to an attack on Japan to awareness of the moral implications of his actions is central to the opera. And the explosion itself is not depicted neutrally at all: the accompanying sound of shrieking babies precludes any sense of objectivity. Afterwards, a Japanese woman can be heard asking for water and her lost husband.
Modernism and the Technological Other
The critical press in part perceived the science fiction sound referred to by Adams while others noted a “modernist” feel. Marilyn Tucker of The American Record Guide heard “sounds and noises that are reminiscent of the musique concrete of Varese [sic]” (Tucker); Jeremy Eichler of The Boston Globe noted “lyrical outbursts [including] the rhythms of Stravinsky, the orchestral brawn of Wagner, and the finish and colors of Ravel” (Eichler); Alex Ross of the New Yorker felt the music “weds a cool Stravinskian precision and rhythmic vitality with a kind of seething Wagnerian dread. Rapid caffeinated figures dart around the orchestra like hyperactive electrons” (Ross). Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times wrote that “[s]kittish instrumental lines come close to sounding like riffs from a serialist score. . . . You hear evocations of sci-fi film scores and bursts of Varèsian frenzy” (Tommasini, “Countdown to the Eve of Destruction”). Ross wrote something quite similar: “Many of these sounds are familiar from the forbidding archives of modern music past, not to mention a hundred sci-fi movies. There’s a sense in Doctor Atomic that Adams is mobilizing the entire ghoulish army of twentieth-century styles” (Ross). Perhaps to Adams the story of the creation of a terrible weapon by scientific reasoning was best expressed by using modernist music.
In his autobiography, Adams expresses dissatisfaction with much of twentieth-century composing styles. He is especially referring to atonal, serial, and electronic music as practiced by Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. According to Adams, these are composers with “a posture of dispassionate scientific investigation as their operative model” (Adams 31). He describes his own maturing as a composer as a conflicting process, having felt at a loss with what he saw as the lack of potential for expressivity in modernist compositional techniques—atonal and serial techniques in particular. He writes that these techniques led to a limiting of the composer’s “expressive palette.” Atonality, he adds, “rather than being the Promised Land so confidently predicted by Schoenberg, Boulez, and Babbitt, proved to be nothing of the kind” (106). However, at the same time, as a fledgling composer he seems to have felt obliged to take these musical developments seriously. He was especially impressed with Boulez, “who possessed the intellectual powers to stake out and defend his positions” (31).
After a long time of experimenting with different methods of composition, with results ranging from a piano quintet to Cage-inspired electronic music created by splicing tapes, he felt that he “had not found a voice . . . on which to build a musical language” (87). Then he composed Phrygian Gates in 1977, inspired by minimal music such as Terry Riley’s In C, compositions by Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. While Adams’s style quickly evolved beyond minimalism’s ethos of simplicity and repetition, its workings permeate famous later works ranging from Nixon in China to On the Transmigration of Souls (2002).
As noted above, many critics mentioned Doctor Atomic’s modernist feel. Perhaps to Adams the story of the creation of a terrible weapon by scientific reasoning was best expressed by using atonal or serialist-like music. In his autobiography, Hallelujah Junction, he describes how he experiences Anton Webern’s music and that of composers inspired by it:
The music of Webern, presented to me in the classroom as paradigm of modern sensibility, was unique, original, personal. But expressively it made me feel tight and constricted, its defining characteristic an emotional parsimony that, when taken up by later practitioners of that style, was most of the time bleak and unfeeling. (Adams 104)
Science fiction film music is traditionally littered with the use of modernist composition techniques, Lisa M. Schmidt argues. In many science fiction films, she argues, modernist musical tropes such as atonal techniques and synthesized or electronic sounds are used to give voice to the unknown: “that which is non-human, alien or monstrous” (Schmidt 38). In Doctor Atomic¸ atonal and electronic composition techniques are similarly used to give musical expression to things and ideas both dangerous and technological. Isabella van Elferen notes that electronically created and/or amplified sounds can give voice to the technological, uncanny, or spectral on the medium level (van Elferen 122). While even music never heard before will inevitably trigger the listener’s memory through association—and thus collapse present and past—recorded music makes this collapse of past and present more powerful due to its being a repetition of a past event (124). Such nostalgic transgressions of history can function to recall a “sanitized,” sentimental, and desirable idea of the past (127). Musical citations and recorded sounds in Doctor Atomic function much in the same way, recalling the old fear and resistance provoked by military technology of the nuclear variety.
As noted in the introduction, it is not possible to see science fiction film music as entirely separate from preexisting musical genres. This becomes especially obvious in the use of electronic collage and microtonality in some of the scenes in Doctor Atomic. Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is scored with similar music, but this film’s soundtrack is actually a compilation of pre-existing concert music ranging from Aram Khachaturian to György Ligeti. However, in the context of Doctor Atomic¸ it also becomes difficult to do the opposite. References to atonal, serial, and electronic twentieth-century music can just as well be interpreted as references to science fiction. In the next paragraph I will establish a direct link between the music of Doctor Atomic and the three discussed films.
Modernist Music as Science Fiction
Musically, the three films and Doctor Atomic have a lot in common. To point out the obvious, all are scored for symphonic orchestra. In the films, strings, brass, and percussion play the most prominent roles. Strings are often used to express a sense of premonition or anxiety. In The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, a group of scientists watching through binoculars are waiting for the explosion to commence (this scene starts at 13:57 on the DVD). The explosion will simultaneously be a sign of their experiments’ success and the awakening of the fictional rhedosaurus. The scene is accompanied by the strings section, first playing a sequence of chords placed on a low drone in the bass. When the countdown starts, the instrumentalists start to play with vibration and add a tense high note. The aria “Batter my Heart” from Doctor Atomic (based on a John Donne sonnet) has m
uch in common with this scene’s music. The ritornello—an instrumental refrain—is based on a very similar sounding drone figure, followed with a tense high note. This time it is spiced up with a typically Adams-sounding rhythmic pulse. The similarity is so striking that it is not unthinkable that Adams paraphrased Beast’s music in this scene.
In Godzilla, when the protagonist monster sets Tokyo on fire, a threatening melody reminiscent of the “Dies Irae” hymn—a chant from the Gregorian requiem mass about judgment day—is played by the brass section, punctuated by pounding timpani and piano (at 43:40 on the DVD). In Beast, the monster’s attack on the city is accompanied by the complete orchestra, playing conspicuous and dissonant brass figures (at 55:00 on the DVD). To name just one of the instances of prominent use of the brass section in Doctor Atomic, the overture contains alarming-sounding, banging cluster chords—chords with closely stacked dissonant pitches—that, right at the start of the opera, sound like an ominous warning (see example 1).
As noted in the paragraph above, dissonance is often used to express the threat of the unknown. For example, when in Them! the protagonists descend into the ants’ nest in the desert in order to destroy the colony, the scene is accompanied by the string section and an eerie-sounding celesta (at 39:45 on the DVD). The instruments play soft, atonal-sounding figures, reminiscent of the later music of modernist trendsetters like Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. The interlude “Rain over Sangre de Cristos” in Doctor Atomic contains similar, eerie-sounding atonal figures played on the harp and celesta (see example 2). The figures accompany Pasqualita’s lullaby for Katherine—J. Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer’s infant child. The “cloud-flower” that “blossoms” in the song invokes the image of the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion, and the tingling chromatic sounds of the harp and celesta floating on the uncertain rhythms of the wind could be its spores, its nuclear fallout. In fact, a similar celesta figure can be heard in scene three of act one, when Captain James Nolan warns General Leslie Groves and Oppenheimer about the horrible consequences of nuclear radiation.
Furthermore, Them! and Godzilla both make frequent use of irregular and unusual metric divisions, such as 5/4 time. Doctor Atomic likewise bulges with strange meters and abrupt meter changes. The overture, again, offers a good example. Adams used such structures in many of his other works, but the jagged rhythmic style seems especially apt in Doctor Atomic.
Finally, there is a scene in Doctor Atomic that sounds surprisingly similar to a scene in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Just before the opera scene “Countdown Part I,” Oppenheimer and Groves have been told that the approaching tropical storm might foil the experiment. In the scene that follows, the strings start to play a jagged chromatic motive, and the brass section plays an irregular percussive figure. The choir produces ominous shrieks; then the brass mutes, and the strings temporarily interrupt their unnerving motion. During a scene in Beast the protagonist, Professor Nesbitt, falls ill after a confrontation with the rhedosaurus, and is transported to New York by airplane (at 15:34 on the DVD). The music in this scene sounds remarkably similar to the “Countdown Part I” fragment. The Beast fragment contains a similar jagged string motif, while the brass section plays punctuated figures, but here in a less complex and less varied fashion than in Doctor Atomic.
Sound Mixing
There is another sonic aspect to Doctor Atomic that makes it sound cinematic. Many sound effects are used in the opera, such as that of rain and thunder during “Rain over Sangre de Cristo,” or shrieking babies during the explosion at the end. These effects and also the amplified sound of the orchestra were mixed in surround sound during performance. The sound of the explosion itself was even created in a manner reminiscent of the roar of Godzilla. Adams made the explosion by looping a timpani roll and by processing the sound digitally to make it sound like an explosion (Adams 290). In Godzilla, the roar was made by using tape-splicing techniques to modify a double bass recording (Hosokawa 48). The explosion in Doctor Atomic was played back so loudly during the sound check that according to Adams “it ought to make half the audience barf” (Else)—thus creating a physical experience through loud sound effects that is also experienced in modern cinema.
Some critics paid attention to Doctor Atomic’s sound design aspects. While the use of electronic or digital instruments or amplification is not without precedent in opera, the use of music technology in opera has hardly ever been as conspicuous (Karl-Birger Blomdahl’s 1959 opera Aniara is a possible exception to this. Next to having space travel as its subject and oddly contrasting serialist music with popular idioms, it prominently features electronic tape parts reminiscent of the soundtrack of the film Forbidden Planet [1956; directed by Mark Wilcox, music by Louis and Bebe Barron]). Mark Thomas Ketterson in Opera News—writing about a performance in 2008 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago—noted that “[p]urists may object to the use of amplified ambient effects . . . [but] these were tremendously effective, as tastefully executed by sound designer Mark Grey” (Ketterson). Entertainment Design dedicated a small article to sound designer Mark Grey’s collaboration to the project and discussed the equipment used to facilitate the soundscapes Adams created for the opera. The article lists a Mach 5 Software Sampler, a Digital Performance Sampler, and the software synthesizer Absynth. The soundscapes were played back on an eight speaker set-up, enveloping the audience not only from the sides but also from above and below. While Act I was mainly rendered using a stereo set-up including a center speaker, the second act used many surround effects. The singing of the chorus was also digitally processed. During both the première and the Dutch performance released on DVD, Mark Grey was attendant and equipped with both a laptop and the score, following cues in order to trigger different effects at the right moment and to mix the orchestral and vocal sounds (Reveaux, “Gray Matter”).
Perhaps the use of body microphones and the live mixing of the singers’ voices can be considered to be the most controversial technological aspect. Traditionally, sound balance in opera performances is achieved through collective efforts of the conductor, orchestra, and singers. Body microphones can offer an alternative method of overcoming these balance problems. In the case of Doctor Atomic, this proved to be especially useful because it would be hard for singers to compete with the large orchestra and electronically amplified sound effects bare-voiced. However, the use of this technology was not met by unanimous acclaim. Tommasini found that the première performance “was troubled by balance problems” and stated that “if you are going to abandon 400 years of tradition and amplify singers to get the balances right, then get the balances right” (Tommasini, “Countdown to the Eve of Destruction”). Some months later he dedicated a whole article to the amplification aspects after witnessing a performance by the San Francisco opera. Asking “Is this the beginning of the end?”, he discussed the introduction of amplification in Broadway musicals. He claimed that the musical shifted focus from “the lyrics (which grew less subtle and intricate), to the subject matter and musical styles (the bigger, the plusher, the schlockier, the better).” Would a new generation of singers with thin voices only adjusted to amplification come about, and would we lose “natural talents and nurtured attentive audiences,” as happened with the Broadway musical? He even drew a connection between the use of amplification and the “national problem” of hearing loss due to rock music experienced by the baby boom generation (Tommasini, “Pipe Down! We Can Hardly Hear You”). Doctor Atomic is not just about science fiction, but it is operatic science fiction in its own right. Tommasini’s article can be interpreted as a classic example of distrust of new technology, not unlike those expressed in the films discussed above.
Staging
In many aspects, Sellars’s 2007 production of Doctor Atomic is geared to a realistic and historically accurate representation. The DVD opens with a montage of historical video footage depicting, among other things, fire bombings and mutilated bodies contrasted with rationalized and mechanized arms production. The foota
ge is musically accompanied by a Varèsian soundscape, mixed with realistic sound effects such as the sound of an airplane and a nostalgic and distorted recording of Jo Stafford’s “The Things We Did Last Summer.” When the overture begins, the proscenium becomes visible, and we see the chorus and dancers, whose choreography was provided by Lucinda Childs. The dancers not only function to express the mechanical motions of weapons manufacturing but also provide a moving image of the bomb’s plutonium core. The singers and dancers are dressed with historical accuracy. In an interview, costume designer Dunya Radicova said that there “was a tremendous amount of research because we had to know as much as possible about what it might have been like to have been there.” Sources for the costumes ranged from museum collections to photographs. However, she was not strictly concerned with realism. “We are even putting in a little bit . . . of Hollywood’s image of the war, in essence to make a connection for the audience, because that’s what they know more than the reality” (Reveaux, “Designing Dr. Atomic”).
The documentary Wonders Are Many (Else) parallels the creation of Doctor Atomic with the history of the Manhattan Project. This documentary shows how the bomb prop used for the premiere staging was modeled as precisely as possible from photographs of the “gadget”—which was the code name used in the Manhattan Project. The same holds true for the scaffolding from which the bomb is suspended during a large part of the opera. During the aria “Batter my Heart” (discussed above), the scaffolding is overhung with a white sheet, removing the bomb from view. A spotlight is placed behind the construction, and as a result the bomb casts a circular shadow on the sheet, calling the Japanese flag to mind. Later in the opera, the scaffolding is removed, while the bomb is left hanging from the theater’s ceiling. Under it is placed the crib of baby Katherine Oppenheimer. Paul Wells—of the Canadian Maclean’s Magazine—reacted to the scene that “[a]s metaphors go, this one is as subtle as a brick. The Bomb—The Menace That Hangs Over All Our Children” (Wells). Here, the sounds of thunder are accompanied by lighting resembling lightning as the introduction to Pasqualita’s lullaby (discussed above) is heard.
The New York Review of Science Fiction Issue #296 April 2013 Page 7
