Dr. Atomic on TV
I suppose that I was disappointed in this work, yet not in the way that I expected–simply put I was bored.
In this work the music, character, and voice were subsidiary to the visual concept. It didn’t fill the gap.
First –thank god for the pan and scan cameras and those close ups or this work is dead in the water. I don’t know how folks in the Met audience can enjoy the experience when the staging is created for the screen close up. Also without the super titles most text would not be understood.
Problems:
1.Unmotivated activity:
The elements of theater do not align – Music does not reflect the text, the text avoids the story – unmotivated stage business and staging, unmotivated text, unmotivated music. Scene 2 almost works but why do the two Oppenheimer’s suddenly start fighting?
There are no text or musical clues for this or any other dramatic occurrence. The music gets intense-yet the text is placid -the text gets intense-the music ignores it.
1.Orchestrally no obbligatos only accompaniments.
2.All the accompaniments are ostinotos.
3.Constant syllabic text settings except for 2 notes at the end of every phrase, the woman’s voices provide some relief but not much. The melizmas are never on text but open vowels.
4.The vocal lines have the effect of a typewriter.
5.Many vocal parts don’t seem composed just improvised over the changes and in a hurry.
6.Text high points are not also musical ones.
7.Odd text choices for musical high points at that.
8.Colorless meandering vocal lines, very similar, that all the characters use. The music does not delineate character.
9.No duets, no real ensembles.
10.Though I appreciate the use of the concept I call “context” in -batter my heart -this almost works, like Les Miz works, because of the text and music repetitions -yet again this goes on way too long. Also the success could be due to the excellent performance (a la Les Miz) in spite of the composition. Also Batter my heart is a real poem. This helps. Batter my heart also uses a lot of freely borrowed material (quotations) from other composers.
11.The chorus was impossible to understand.
12.Inexperienced text writers, who look to Rock Opera, rather then grand opera, for its models.
13.Instrumental composer composing theatrical vocal music again.
14.The vocal music is never reflected or imitated in the
orchestra.
15.Every story detail is expressed the same emotional level.
16.The seams of the work’s construction are very visible.
The instrumental segues are interesting but seem made up of modernistic “effects” and though they sonically provide contrast and underscoring they frame scenes that they are also divorced from. Even here they the music is subservient to the set changes.
All this guilt about an event that according to many folks saved 500,000 American lives. This work also avoids many interesting side issues such as racism, or the Japanese experience within the work. The tack on at the end, with no emotion (irony), suggests that this is opera for the art crowd not for musicians.
The most important theatrical moment, the end, is not a musical moment or even staged. Other important theatrical musical moments are instrumental and not sung.
When there is music it does not explain the characters and the characters do not interact except as a staging device.
I think we have to look at what it takes to get a new opera done at the Met, or anywhere else for that matter. I wish I could say that the standard is high. This seems like an opera it just has no core.
Perhaps the use of the term avant garde is just an excuse to sweep the dramatic failings under the rug-or perhaps this work is the true representation of its generations feelings. No feelings at all.
I’m afraid that only those who have a knack for getting high profile performances are the ones who can get an opera performed these days. Believing that skill as a vocal composers would be a factor in this is naive. Sigh. The Met was willing to use a director that had no opera experience. So why not a composer? Repeating the same mistakes each time does not equal experience.
One doesn’t have to wonder at the critics positive reviews to this work– its their schadenfreude at the impotence of the Modernist composers to get anything like this on board themselves.–still Berg and Schoenberg are in the opera repertory. This is spite of Mr. Adams positioned himself as the antidote to modernism. Actually there is much in common with this work and Mr. Carter’s recent opera.
Still, in Carter the music comes first.
The styles have changed and new gods are worshiped. Oddly this work takes the musical delicatessen approach. One is perhaps a little shocked that since the “met” has traditionally performed 3rd rate new music in its time, that this and other recent works are not included in this category. Why? Snob appeal perhaps? Fear of missing the boat? Professionalism is a given at the Met in all production areas but composition is something else again. Composers are not in house.
Why do so many folks who claim to be “outsiders” need to look up to an obvious insider as a “leader?” Outsiders can’t get performed at the Met. It was bad enough when Boulez pretended to be the inside outsider. I still like his music. I can’t say the same thing for Mr. Adams.
Music- D+
Character -F
Voice (vocal writing — not the singing) – F
Extra Credit: direction, performances, costumes, sets, A+
Assignment Review Dr. Atomic yourself.
Review Dr. Atomic yourself. Were my expectation of what is opera problematic or off base?
The First Emperor Review
By: Philip Fried Date: Jan 13, 2007 – 05:20 PM
When I went to hear this work at the MET simulcast I was afraid that is was merely a political work–Chinese composers can come to American and find artistic success criticizing their old homelands and of course certainly not critiquing their new homeland.
Anyway, after hearing the work on the MET simulcast–I was a little shocked as this was not the work I was expecting. I was informed and had experienced Mr. Dun as an avant-garde composer and not as a reborn Ralph Vaughn Williams or Delibes with a couple of glissandos thrown in to keep up to date. I was shocked that he chose to sacrifice everything; text, scansion, drama, character, musical integration and content, in order to create constant big operatic moments and the cheap thrill of the high note.
By the way, a story in which a composer bites the hand of his benefactor certainly is a fairy tale
Assignment The First Emperor Review
Review it yourself. Was my criticism about the work being constructed primarily to please fair or just? What are the implications of the political content of the work. Is it reasonable to think that US gate keepers or from any country would encourage immigrant artists to criticize their former countries?
Did the work succeed? Why or Why not?