The weather was nervous-making that summer evening 73 years ago when the first atomic bomb was tested at a remote desert site a little more than 200 miles south of here. An unpredictable warm air mass capable of producing a violent thunderstorm could blow radiation fallout to nearby populations. Lightning, some scientists feared, might trigger a cosmic chain reaction igniting the Earth’s atmosphere.

Just such a violent desert thunderstorm came out of nowhere Thursday night during a Santa Fe Opera performance of John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic,” which dramatizes and provides uniquely essential insight into the most disquieting scientific event in history.