Adams: Doctor Atomic

Adams: Doctor Atomic
by Sellars, Renes

Adams: Doctor Atomic
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DVD details

Actor: Fink, Finley, Maddalena, Owens, Rivera
Director: Renes, Sellars
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); German (Unknown); French (Unknown); Dutch (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Italian (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Classical, Color, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 230 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-30
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Bbc / Opus

DVD Reviews of Adams: Doctor Atomic

DVD Review: DR. ATOMIC - watch it and change
Summary: 4 Stars

It was recommended that I spend a night with this modern opera, after which I would have developed a new language. I did. Hours well spent. A side bonus is finer understanding of people I know that are the children of the scientists.

DVD Review: Can't completely recommend it
Summary: 3 Stars

Here are the positives: a very nice dvd, fine sets, a lovely libretto, very enjoyable orchestration, and very good singing for the most part. The tenor was slightly weak, but I've come to believe they generally all are in these modern operas, because the really good tenors are out singing Italian opera. Anyway, all the other singers were extremely good and enjoyable. What ruins it all for me, is the generally ugly, repetitive and dull vocal line. I kept thinking how it could have been made to be enjoyable all the time I was listening. Don't get me wrong - there were some magical moments where it appeared Adams really took care with the vocal melody and it was very lovely but these moments were way too few and far between - it seemed for the most part he just quickly jotted down tons and tons of recitative as fast as he could. I found it very annoying, and I was longing for more great material for these terrific singers all through the show. If the vocal line were more polished, I would definitely have said Adams achieved a masterpiece, but the lack of it, when everything else was so lovely, left me very disappointed.

DVD Review: Fatuous
Summary: 1 Stars

All right, I'm not a fan of Adams' music: it's hard to make minimalist music reach very far, which comes down to saying that harmonic stretch is the essence of what makes western classical music work. There might be some disagreement there, which is fine with me.

What bothers me is what bothers me about Adams' other political ("political") operas: he deals with controversial subject matter and then pretends that it's not controversial because he's "seeing all sides." This allows him the intellectually dishonest freedom to both "do" the story and not do the story: he tells the story and then refuses to deal with the simple fact that these stories deal with moral rights and wrongs. If Tom Ferrell is right and we've got still another "America does someone dirty" piece of left-wing claptrap, then that makes my point about Adams right there. On the other hand, Nixon in China, eg. and also the opera that "gave a chance" to muslim terrorists to tell us all about their version of why they kill people from "their own authentic viewpoint": both of these both [...]-foot around in pursuit of the most squishy of squishy leftist peacemongering while at the same time pretending to taking the high road and turning "serious" human situations into "great art" (Adams? Great art? Please.), thereby giving their treatments the factitious appearance of profound, sensitive, perceptive (etc. etc.) insight into "the human struggle."

Sappy.


DVD Review: A brilliant production BUT
Summary: 4 Stars

Is the music larger than the production? This is a very powerful work. Almost a horror story but unfortunately the horrible bomb is all too real. The production by librettist and collaborator Peter Sellars is powerful. The story is the creation of the first atomic bomb, and its creator Dr Oppenheimer is the protagonist. Doctor Atomic is must seeing for Gerald Finley alone. This is an awesome performance. He nails the character perfectly. And of course his singing is exemplary as usual. The other singers compliment him very well.
But the question boils down to the music. Is it more than the production? It will be interesting to see how it fares with a new production such as the MET just put on. There are a few arioso sections but not built on melody. Everything is recitative - perhsps influenced by Monteverdi. The music serves the text admirably in its frightening noises - especially when evoking the terror of the bomb. But you certainly won't be humming anything on the way out. Unlike serialism it is not hard to take. But it is quite dry and I wonder if the recitative might be better replaced by talking over the orchestra. It certainly must have been tiring to sing.

DVD Review: Great singing, Beautiful music, horrible filming
Summary: 1 Stars

This production is 95% very, very close-up full face shots. There are no, zero, full stage shots. Very Occasionally there is a full body shot. There is absolutely no sense of theater at all.

This opera could have been filmed in an 8 x 12 foot room. No sense of space exists. DAS BOOT had more wide shots. Even the dance sequences, by famed choreographer Lucinda Childs, are shown in half body, never in full ensamble. There were close-ups that showed only an EYE, full screen. The average cut away was about every two seconds. The camera never lingered on a singer for more than a second or two. The fine chorus was shown, guess what, as only full face individuals. Gerald Finley was excellent, but did we have to see him in extreme close-up ALL THE TIME. Paul Newman he's not. We have scene after scene of Kitty Openheimer SLEEPING in close-up. There is even a close-up of a plastic baby doll.

This Video is a shame. A wonderful performance ruined by totally inept filming. The video jacket credits the director, Peter Sellers, as the TV director. He must be incompetent or playing a joke on us.

Wait for the Mets HD filming to become available.

Description of Adams: Doctor Atomic

The longing to overcome human boundaries lead the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to begin an experiment that formed a threat to the whole of humanity, and whose scientific results still do today. The question of the moral implications of the atomic bomb is raised in John Adams opera, just as much as that of the influence on the private lives of the main characters. Doctor Atomic is the fifth work to result from almost twenty years of collaboration between the American composer and his fellow American director and Erasmus Prize-winner Peter Sellars. Doctor Atomic concerns itself with the work of J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists at the test site of the first atomic bomb outside Los Alamos, New Mexico during the lead-up to the first detonation. As Zero Hour relentlessly approaches and conditions become less and less favorable, individual tensions build feverishly and Oppenheimer and his staff struggle with the moral implications of their work on 'the Gadget', and the strong possibility of global annihilation. Recorded in high definition video and true surround sound, John Adams' fascinating, overwhelming score and Peter Sellars' forceful staging (and TV direction) portray Oppenheimer, exquisitely sung by Gerald Finley, as a profoundly troubled man, at odds with himself but moving inexorably forward, representative of the great ethical dilemmas of humanity itself.

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