A few nights ago, I was lucky enough to stare intimately at the mountainous silhouette that was the Lyric opera's stage set for Dr. Atomic. Given my past life in the theater, I would be thrilled to attend anything done by the visionary librettist and stage director, Peter Sellars. And of course the composer, John Adams, is famed for his previous opera Nixon in China. Having missed that, I jumped at the chance to witness this production.
You are probably aware that the opera examines the actions and feelings of many of the principals involved in the Manhattan project. Set in Los Alamos, New Mexico in the summer of 1945, the opera focuses on J. Robert Oppenheimer. Sellars says that Dr. Atomic tries to put a human face on the human beings who created the atomic bomb. The opera was an amazing mix of trance-inducing, poetry-worshipping, heart-stopping and yes, lovely music, song, dance and art. What does this have to do with landscape? I quote Sellars: "The hope is that we make something that does have the feeling of what it's like to be alive right now -- with that intensity, with that sense that the stakes are that high -- global stakes. That what we do as Americans actually has incredible consequences -- genuinely high stakes for the future of the planet." While we may not all be brilliant scientists poised to change the future on a scale this profound, we can all take responsibility for our earthly actions or lack thereof. The words still echo from one of my favorite poets, John Donne: "Batter my heart, three-person'd god. For you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend." Be there. Since I don't have any images from New Mexico, above you can see Red Rock Canyon, Nevada. And if you wish to read an incredibly moving book about the effects of radiation fallout on humans and flooding on bird migration (among other things), read Terry Tempest Williams' book, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place.
