Bomb-La-La-La-La

Songs about dodecahedrons? The new opera Doctor Atomic proves art and science have more in common than you think.

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A Bomb Inspires an Opera

From pure physics to entertainment

December 1942
A team of University of Chicago scientists, led by Enrico Fermi, mounts the first successful atomic chain reaction in a squash court under the stands of Stagg Field in Hyde Park.

March 1943
The Manhattan Project opens a research lab in New Mexico under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer (right), a physics professor. "Oppenheimer was a reader of poetry," composer John Adams says. "He carried in his back pocket a volume of Baudelaire in French."

July 1945
The first atomic bomb (left) is successfully detonated in the New Mexico desert.

November 1999
What starts as an idea for a Faust-like opera about the Manhattan Project changes when Adams (below right) signs on. "The [classic] Faust was one of extreme arrogance," Adams says. "[The project scientists] were convinced that they were in a race against the Nazis to save civilization."

October 2005
Adams's opera, Doctor Atomic, premières in San Francisco. The New York Times calls it Adams's "most inventive and emotional score to date."

December 2007
The Chicago production is scheduled to open with a new scene for Kitty Oppenheimer, Robert's wife, just before the final countdown. "Everybody seemed to feel she's such an important voice—I suppose you could call it the feminine conscience," Adams says.

Photography: (Oppenheimer and explosion) Courtesy of Department of Energy, (Adams) Deborah O'Grady

This article appears in the December 2007 issue of Chicago Magazine.

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