The specter of nuclear annihilation is something to sing about.

Doctor Atomic is an opera that follows the tale of J. Robert Oppenheimer and his nucleus of scientists in the 24 hours prior to the Trinity atomic bomb test in New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Now, 13 years after its debut, Doctor Atomic is bringing the bomb back home, performing within eye sight of the Los Alamos National Lab, the cradle of the Nuclear Age.

“We don’t have to build a set,” jokes librettist and director Peter Sellars, “because we’re actually on location.”

“We don’t have to build a set because we're actually on location."

Doctor Atomic is the origin story of nukes, but it means something more for the state of New Mexico—this local tale still looms large some 70 years later. Pueblo Indians, who worked for the Los Alamos scientists, and “Downwinders,” people who lived in communities near the Trinity site, have suffered unusually high rates of cancer from these early nuclear tests. Both Pueblo Indians and Downwinders appear briefly in the production, making this staging of Doctor Atomic the most personal performance in the show's history.

La Historia de Los Alamos

Workers attach the first atomic device, nicknamed The Gadget, to the detonation tower on July 14, 1945. Los Alamos National Laboratory Getty Images

The world’s first atomic weapon was forged under pressure. Pressure to beat the Nazis to the ultimate punch; pressure to have the biggest stick on the playground. In the early 1940s, physics research was spread throughout the U.S. in fragments across several U.S. universities. As project director, Oppenheimer assembled a team in one central location, where secrecy was of the highest order.

"I wish I could combine my love of physics with my love of New Mexico.” - J. Robert Oppenheimer

“Voice of the Manhattan Project” historian Ellen Bradbury Reid, the daughter of a lab explosives expert and consultant to the production, says that Oppenheimer knew remote New Mexico, having visited several times before the Manhattan Project called it home. According to Reid, Oppenheimer once said, “I wish I could combine my love of physics with my love of New Mexico.” With military management from Gen. Leslie Groves, a site was selected in the northern part of “the land of enchantment” on a mesa in the Jemez Mountains—the tiny village of Los Alamos.

Los Alamos may not have been the most comfortable location, but it was in this cocoon of secrecy that scientists worked on the weapon to defeat all weapons, leading up to the eventual summer 1945 test some 35 miles southeast of Socorro, N.M.

Making a Bomb Opera (That Doesn’t Bomb)

Ryan McKinny as J. Robert Oppenheimer in front of The Gadget. Ken Howard/Santa Fe Opera

In two acts, Doctor Atomic covers a lot of ground, examining not only history but the moral and psychological issues of the bomb’s creators and the time in which they lived and worked. The music is equal parts dissonant, jarring, and melodic, sometimes sounding more like a sci-fi score than an opera.

Sellars devised the concept from a discussion about who might be a modern Faust, and Oppenheimer’s name popped up. Although he never sold his soul for power, the famous atomic scientist was tormented by the consequences of his work. Upon seeing the magnitude of the power unleashed at New Mexico, he famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

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The history of the Manhattan Project is a well-known story, but it was far from an open source project, so Sellars gathered information where he could—from books, personal histories, and FOIA’d documents, some of which contained transcripts from secret surveillance tapes. Many of the opera's lyrics are pulled from actual declassified files, giving insight to the thoughts and feelings of Oppenheimer and his team of scientists.

But it was Richard Rhodes, author of a four-volume history of the bomb, who became “the guardian angel of our project,” Sellars says. Rhodes won a Pulitzer Prize for , and it was his exhaustive knowledge that brought the thread of historical truth to Sellars' opera.

But what drew Sellars to the material was how the history and drama mixed into a tale perfect for his medium of choice. “What else but opera has the scale, scope, and density to treat all sides of the topic at once?" says Sellars.

Composer John Adams during the intermission of Doctor Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera, 2008. Jack Vartoogian Getty Images

The duo of Sellars and composer John Adams had successfully tackled history in two previous operas: The Death of Klinghoffer, about a terrorist victim on a captured cruise ship; and the Grammy-winning Nixon in China, where a U.S. president meets a dictator. Like their previous operas, Doctor Atomic is more interested in exploring the thoughts and feelings of its titular character, rather than meticulously recreating historical events but its themes of regret, morality, patriotism,and war make this much more than just a simple character study.

“The atomic bomb is the constellation of everything America stands for,” says Adams, “both what makes us great and what makes us a problem in the world.”

The opera opens in one war-ravaged world and transitions to another, where humans must live with a bomb of unimaginable destructive force. On stage, against a backdrop of the mountain mesas which was the home of the Manhattan Project, hangs a massive and ominous silver ball. It represents “the gadget,” the Trinity test bomb. It’s the key prop, ever-present, and serves as the entire set.

The tone is accurate, confrontational, and uncompromising. Oppenheimer and his dedicated team of scientists work under the dual pressures of patriotism and moral conscience. As debates rage around him, the mental chaos of his work is amplified by his stresses of his personal life with his wife, Kitty, and their newborn infant.

In Act Two, tensions continue to rise and reach their frightful climax at zero hour detonation. Then we are left alone in the dark to wonder and worry. Seventy years later, that worry remains.

Julia Bullock, who portrays Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty in the opera, says, “it’s American history that helps us take an even closer look at the here and the now.”

Nuclear Weapons: An Unfinished Story

Sign marking the Trinity explosion site. Education Images Getty Images

To this day, the history of Los Alamos still haunts New Mexico.

The state’s history museum in Santa Fe hosts an exhibit of nuclear-themed art and artifacts; the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History calls Albuquerque home; and Sandia Laboratory, also in Albuquerque, is one of only three nuclear laboratories in the U.S. Uranium mines thread through Native American lands in the west, and downwinders, still suffering radiation effects from atmospheric testing, continue to lobby Congress for reparations.

Downwinders on stage during Doctor Atomic at the Santa Fe Opera. Ken Howard/Santa Fe Opera

"The state is speaking to us," Sellars says.

He and choreographer Emily Johnson worked closely with three Pueblo tribes of Tesuque, Santa Clara, and San Idelfonso to include traditional Corn Dances both before and during the production. Of indigenous (Yup’ik) heritage, Johnson felt “intensely honored” to have shared the experience.

"[The Corn Dances] are a gesture of healing after 70 years of atomic history in New Mexico," says Santa Fe Opera general director Charles Mackay. "The dances are sacred. They are prayers...never in their histories have these Pueblos danced together."

Although this opera ends at detonation, the atomic story is still being written. Sellars evens sees a possibility of another opera tackling the atomic bomb.

"You don't reduce [the bomb] to a little historical anecdote," Sellars told PBS in April. "Because it's not our history, it's our future. Nukes are our future."

But the birth of the atomic bomb still looms in the tiny town of Los Alamos—and that will likely never change. As Oppenheimer predicted decades ago, “if atomic bombs are to be added to the arsenals of nations, the time will come when mankind will curse the name Los Alamos."

The show runs at the Santa Fe Opera until August 16th.

The Trinity test, July 16th, 1945. Historical Getty Images

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