I'll have a formal review of Doctor Atomic early next week, but will put a few thoughts here. Adams has always gotten a lot of mileage out of the choruses in his operas, but that goes to an entirely new level in Doctor Atomic. The singers in the chorus serve as the work's soul a great deal of the time, from singing in stunned tones as they name the cities being considered for destruction, as Oppenheimer and Edward Teller debate this in fact, to a fierce and terrifying scene near the end as they describe Vishnu in the evening sky.
I was floored by the choreography of Lucinda Childs, whose dancers serve as the unspoken feelings of the singers, and Sellars's direction, so off-putting to many people, touched me deeply. His direction was the first topic of conversation brought up by any critic who saw the premiere, and who returned to Chicago for this revision.
You have to think a little to figure out why the singers and dancers are doing what they're doing, and why Gerald Finley's Oppenheimer is staggering in stylized agony as he sings the big aria, "Batter My Heart/Three Person'd God," but I'm not opposed to that. How you respond to the proposition of thinking about the onstage action, and how it relates to the music, says a lot about what you think opera can aspire to be.
Photo: Robert Kusel. You can can see dancers in the background with slide rules, hammers and wrenches; choristers with pine branches; physicists and soldiers huddle around a bank of lights; and the Oppenheimers with their maid's family in the foreground. (It's a little too big to fit clearly into DecSimp's template, so it was cropped. Click on it for the full picture.) Four distinct visual images, propulsive music for the choir with Kitty Oppenheimer going all Cassandra above them. This was an awe-inspiring stage picture of music and imagery.