Global warning: John Adams's 'Doctor Atomic'

Last week, I went to see a concert performance at London's Barbican of John Adams's great 2005 opera 'Doctor Atomic'. Since current world events have turned our attention all over again to nuclear weapons, this portrait of Oppenheimer and his colleagues in the run-up to creating the first atom bomb felt queasily topical.

The gig itself is rooted in a far happier enterprise - celebrations for John Adams's 70th birthday, and the conductor himself was here to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra, plus the BBC Singers and a group of fine soloists. This team are underlining the opera's place in posterity. The concert followed recording sessions for the Nonesuch label - exciting news: while two productions have made it to DVD, I'm not sure there's an existing CD version. And this performance was recorded to go out in the near future on BBC Radio 3 - which means it will also spend a month on iPlayer. So, if you're at all curious to hear 'Doctor Atomic', you'll have no excuse for missing it!

But you won't need one. It's a shining, shattering work - exhilarating and ultimately devastating. The opening scenes of the opera take place the month before the first atom bomb test, when the terrifying implications of what they have created are fracturing the bond between the scientists. Oppenheimer's colleagues Teller and Wilson both have grave fears about the weapon, with Wilson potentially agitating the team against its use. Oppenheimer warns him against interfering in politics, but is himself profoundly troubled, as the following scene at home with his wife Kitty shows. We then fast-forward to 15 July 1945, the night before the test. Weather conditions seem about to scupper the exercise, but the formidable General Groves will not countenance any delay. Over the remaining 24 hours of the story, we move between the test site and the Oppenheimer residence, where Kitty and the family's Native American maid Pasqualita remain. As tensions rise, the bomb is finally detonated, and the final sounds we hear are voices of Hiroshima survivors (where, of course, the bomb would be used in anger only a few weeks after the test).

The libretto, part-written/part-assembled by regular Adams collaborator Peter Sellars, weaves together speeches, thoughts and opinions from existing documents by or about the characters concerned, with quotations and allusions to poetry and myth outside the 'reality' of the opera's scenario. (I was reminded of the similarly wide-ranging balance of the mystic and realistic in the two Adams/Sellars oratorios, 'El Niño' and 'The Gospel According to the Other Mary', which I also love.)

What makes this technique particularly appropriate for 'Doctor Atomic' is that Oppenheimer was a well-read man particularly drawn to poetry - so in his moments of highest anxiety, it is only too fitting that he retreats into his beloved verse. The key highlight here is almost certainly Oppenheimer's aria 'Batter my heart', which is a setting of a John Donne poem that articulates the torment of one wracked between good and evil. Poetry and storytelling link Oppenheimer to his home and family: Kitty's first appearance is unexpectedly sensual, as she tries to soothe and rouse her husband out of his gloom with the words 'Am I in your light?' - actually a quote from a poem by Muriel Rukeyser.

Listening closely to the words heightened my awareness of the voices. This may sound facile, but bear with me: it's easy to take certain operatic vocal conventions as read without thinking about them too hard. Often, the hero is a tenor. Often, the villain is a bass or baritone. Often, the heroine is a soprano. And often, mezzos are cast as femmes fatales or blokes, giving rise to the 'witches, bitches and britches' line. Obviously, these are not universal, but they're the case routinely enough to become clichés of a sort.

But I was newly struck here by how Adams had the characters' registers fit their mental state and role in the drama. Teller (Brindley Sherratt), nearly crushed by the weight of his fear and knowledge, sings in an ominous bass - as does the immovable, ultimately responsible General (Aubrey Allcock). Oppenheimer (Gerald Finley), suspended between breakdown and release, holds the piece together with his fleet baritone. The other baritone role is Hubbard (Marcus Farnsworth), the weather forecaster, who must also - at a more modest level - sing the line between expert self-assurance and uncertain conscience. The tenors are those more or less given over to panicked action or drama: Wilson the rebel (Andrew Staples) and Nolan (Samuel Sakker), the captain who tries to give Groves graphic warning of the bomb's effects. In all, the men's roles convey the unbearable claustrophobia - both physical and mental - of their situation.

Where any release is possible - however short-lived - the two women provide it: Kitty (soprano Julia Bullock) attempting to lighten her husband's spirit, and let some space into the sound; Pasqualita (mezzo Jennifer Johnston) voicing the warmth of home. As the countdown continues, both women's psyches will be as profoundly affected as the men's.

I found the soloists uniformly excellent. Although - and who knows, possibly because - they had to stay relatively close to their positions, their singing and movement were so convincing that I didn't for a second wish it had been fully-staged. Clearly working as a tight ensemble (brilliant to look forward to their recorded version), the adrenalin of performance seemed to translate perfectly into the tension of the opera. From small touches of characterisation (I'm still thinking about Finley's omnipresent cigarette and Staples's flimsy leaflet), to carefully-controlled body language and exchanged glances - every performer made an indelible contribution that supported the others. And it would be remiss of me not to award lofty praise to the BBC Singers who, as chorus, chanted both pure science and apocalyptic visions like a single horror-struck organism.

None of this would be possible, of course, without Adams's score. As a fully paid-up fan of his work, I was expecting to like and admire it, but I hadn't banked on being so profoundly moved or disturbed by it. While parts of 'Doctor Atomic' are undeniably beautiful, there is sonic terror here, too: layer upon layer of sometimes grinding, pulsing intensity that place you mid-maelstrom. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, in a suitably vast incarnation, visibly (and audibly) relished the chance to play the piece for the composer as if their lives depended on it. I don't think anyone there that evening is likely to forget those closing moments, a kind of horrified catharsis as the explosion faded and the players turned their lights out one by one, leaving us in a moral, as well as visual, void.

Eternally topical, unflinching, magnificent.

Six-pack

I've become increasingly aware in recent months of some great CDs finding their way into chez Specs (how does THAT happen?!) - and my increasing failure to tell you about them. So, weighting the content towards the music itself rather than my ramblings for once, here are a few recent records that make me come over all evangelical.

Jethro Tull: 'The String Quartets'
Being something of a proglodyte, I adore Jethro Tull - and while this disc might look like Ian Anderson could be trading on former glories, I actually think it really works. The songs translate successfully, helped by the frontman's flute (not a euphemism) which gave the originals such a timeless feel in the first place. This selection is the arrangement for 'Locomotive Breath', re-christened 'Loco'.

Elliott Smith: 'Either/Or - Expanded Edition'
I'd always considered myself a huge fan of Smith's music. But it was only when this re-issue of my favourite of his albums was announced, that I realised how hard I had found it to play the CDs following his awful death - now some 14 years ago. Revisiting this record, I found myself binge-listening to his whole body of work, and falling in love with his seemingly inexhaustible supply of melancholic melodies all over again. The appropriately named 'Either/Or' is the precise 'bridging' point between his early albums' whispery acoustic and the later, more robustly produced material. The expanded edition adds some fascinating finds, including his demo of the gorgeous 'I Figured You Out' - a song he found surplus to requirements but recorded beautifully by Mary Lou Lord. But this choice here is 'Alameda' from the original track listing - both firm and fragile, the delicate web of a tune spun over a steely shuffle. Lovely moment when the second verse - and the bass - seem to arrive in a hurry.

Max Richter: 'Orlando: Modular Astronomy' from 'Woolf Works'
Sadly, I haven't made it to a performance of 'Woolf Works', the ballet by Wayne McGregor based on three of Virginia Woolf's novels. However, the score is a haunting, addictive suite by Richter that stands up brilliantly by itself. With clear appeal to someone like me who worships at the Glass altar (among others), the 'Orlando' section variations in particular are resourceful, inventive and welcoming. They manage to conjure up a meeting point between the cerebral, restless personality they celebrate, and a life-affirming physicality for dance.

7JK: 'Ride the Solar Tide'
Regular readers (thank you, darlings, thank you) will know how much I admire Matt Howden - aka Sieben - who records his solo material with voice, violin and a loop station. Pushing constantly at these parameters, he manages to use his apparently restrictive set-up as a springboard for one heroically inventive and original album after another. However, in his collaborations - such as the mighty Rasp record with Jo Quail and this project with Maciek Frett of Polish industrial band Job Karma - he can really let rip. Dark folk and industrial/noise have long seemed to be unlikely but steadfast 'counter-culture' bedfellows, and in 7JK you have a full-on merger, with Matt's swirling, pulsing fiddle barely contained by the electronic rhythms beneath it. Placing Sheffield firmly within the outer reaches of the solar system, the whole album is a surreal, sinister yet mischievous treat - this track, 'Barry the Astonishing', a great entry point. Channel your inner Estonian!

Cavern of Anti-Matter: 'Blood-Drums' and 'Void Beats / Invocation Trex'
Cavern of Anti-Matter is the latest band from Tim Gane, one of the chief masterminds behind the much-missed Stereolab. Anyone who cherished that group's ability to produce driving, 'motorik', groove-laden anthems while simultaneously sounding so laidback and nonchalant will find much to enjoy here. Without Laetitia Sadler's understatedly cool vocals, this is inevitably a different and slightly less 'sensual' proposition. Instead, there's a kind of techno-fury added to the gloriously analogue mix - real drums propelling synths set to maximum 'squelch'. Two CDs released in quick succession: both great. This is the title track to 'Blood-Drums'.

Lavinia Meijer: 'The Glass Effect'
With one CD entirely devoted to Philip Glass already under her belt, harpist LM has returned to the source, but this time with a luxurious two-disc release that places more Glass arrangements alongside complementary works by a range of contemporary composers (such as Muhly and Arnalds). A great and satisfyingly epic listen, but it's almost impossible for me to tear myself away from the PG compositions themselves - and here is an example, Etude 17.

Eyes (and ears) front: 'Meistersinger' and 'Carousel'

It's hard to imagine how my latest two visits to an opera house could be more different. The last time I was in the Royal Opera House, I saw the new production of Wagner's 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg', while my trip to the London Coliseum yesterday was for Rodgers & Hammerstein's 'Carousel'.

And yet, rightly or wrongly, they seem to share a link that - once I started mulling it over - I found hard to shake off: that their 'offstage' circumstances are bound to influence and colour the way they are received and discussed.

'Meistersinger' was Kasper Holten's farewell production as the ROH's Director of Opera. He heads back to his native Denmark (where he has said he wants his young family to settle), earlier than we might have expected. Both his own productions and overall tenure at the ROH seem to have provoked mixed reactions, and the fact that he was bowing out with an opera featuring a bunch of reactionaries resisting artistic progress didn't go unnoticed. Personally, I'd guess that a new production of 'Meistersinger' must've been in the works for some years, longer than KH would've been deciding whether to stay on or not - but I don't know, and I don't particularly want to know. The 'critique of the critic' - if that's how one wants to view it - is all there in the opera already.

I saw three operas directed by KH - 'Don Giovanni', 'Krol Roger', then 'Meistersinger' - and they show to me, at any rate, a definite consistency of approach which appeals to me personally. Without going into all-out 'Regietheater' (the practice of reinventing source material - think modern-dress Shakespeare - but increasingly a by-word for a director-as-dictator pushing interpretation to the limits, sometimes steamrollering over the received wisdom about the composer's intentions) ... we are invited into 'Kasperworld', a slightly surreal - but not 'unreal' - domain where unexpected visuals add a further dimension to what we hear. For example, the projections in 'DG' included the writing of the anti-hero's conquests across the background - while the number of his seductions can be sung for comic effect, the endless list of names brings home his horrendous treatment of hundreds of women. 'Krol Roger', a brilliant psychodrama, was enacted around a large effigy of the king's head, with dancers moving like synapses within, playing out the mental struggle.

And so, onto 'Meistersinger', where the scenes are blurred, so that characters can occupy the same space on stage but 'be' in any location - Sachs's workshop, the meeting hall, the streets. The set also revolves, so that some of the action is played out 'backstage', without anyone breaking character. While I'm still not sure this worked 100% dramatically, I liked the idea - one thing constantly running through the opera is artifice: everyone is putting up a front of some kind. Both Sachs and Eva have to skirt round the fact that he might have won her, and she might have gone for him; Beckmesser is barely holding himself together; Walther is striving to be something he isn't - and David pretends to be something he isn't when teaching him. Spoiler alert: the most infamous example is the ever-problematic ending, where Sachs seems to 'snap' out of his progressive outlook, go back to being old-school and praise heritage German art. For this, KH had a clever twist up his sleeve, where Eva flees the scene rather than submit to Walther, who - against his initial instincts - ends up going down the trad route and joining the elite.

With this in mind, I found the 'theatrical bubble' presentation appealing and stimulating. It needed great performances to carry it, and I felt we got these: stand-outs for me were Bryn Terfel (unsurprisingly) who, I felt, caught particularly well the underlying melancholy of Sachs - no mean feat to sing so powerfully yet convey a kind of weary resignation in the acting. Rachel Willis-Sørensen was superbly cast, giving Eva a strong-willed maturity that made her convince opposite both Sachs and Walther (Gwyn Hughes Jones) and give the surprise ending a meaningful foundation. Hanna Hipp and Allan Clayton brought Lena and David - who could so easily be a sub-plot 'mirror couple' - to comic yet tender, emotionally-sung, three-dimensional life.

(Hanna Hipp and Allan Clayton, in Clive Barda's great production photo, copyright Royal Opera House 2017.)

'Carousel', meanwhile, is the latest in a series of musicals playing at the Coliseum while English National Opera ('ENO') is between seasons. But there has been a bit more 'between seasons' than usual, with ENO's business woes resulting in the decision to make the 2016/17 season shorter and less resource-heavy than usual.

I've made no secret in the past on this blog of where my sympathies and loyalties lie when it comes to ENO: they're with the company (small 'c') - by which I mean, the Chorus and Orchestra. As a punter, it's quite clear to me they are an exceptional group of musicians and I want to see them treated with maximum appreciation and respect, and given as much gainful employment as possible.

[STOP PRESS: As I type this, the Olivier Awards are being announced. ENO's 'Akhnaten' has won Best New Opera Production, and Mark Wigglesworth - their previous Music Director who sadly resigned - has won Outstanding Achievement in Opera for conducting ENO's recent 'Don Giovanni' and 'Lulu'. I couldn't be more pleased.]

The 2016/17 season - while it had some great shows which I loved - could and should have used the Chorus, in particular, more than it did. The musicals are potentially controversial because they historically bring in talent rather than use what ENO have already - but at the same time, the organisation are quite upfront about using them to generate income from the Coliseum when it might otherwise be dark.

Encouragingly, however, 'Carousel' is using the ENO Orchestra and Chorus alongside a song 'n' dance ensemble, which made me feel more comfortable about going along to support it. It's a musical I happen to like - at least in terms of the songs - and it was a chance to take my mum and dad to the Coliseum. (Phase 1 in a long game, aiming at getting them along to an opera.) However, the lead roles are not taken by opera singers, as I generally experience them - but 'crossover' classical stars Alfie Boe as Billy and Katherine Jenkins as Julie.

I had a really good time at 'Carousel' - I think it's a show that will give everyone exactly what they want to take from it. [With my blessing, please stop here if you want to avoid spoilers.]

Lots of it, I thought, was absolutely terrific: the Orchestra are on majestic form, as are the Chorus, simply adding more and more weight to my existing conviction that they can do absolutely anything, brilliantly. For a 'semi-staging', the set was a lot more inventive than I was expecting - attractive, static backgrounds gave a feel for location, while wooden platform proved endlessly all-purpose as the action required. I particularly enjoyed the pathway being constructed for Billy to walk on while he was actually performing the 'Soliloquy' number - it added to the impression of his being lost in thought, with only the theatrical machinery there to support him. And there are two thrilling dance sequences - the overture (a reverse run-through of the entire story) and the heart-rending sequence showing Louise (Billy's daughter) grow to adolescence.

AB and KJ both gave sincere, committed performances. I actually found this aspect of the show the hardest to get used to: the singers were miked up. This is not to criticise the leads at all - I can honestly say that I've never really followed their careers because they don't tend to perform repertoire in the way I want to hear it. But I'm used to hearing people in the Coliseum sing with that much power and conviction without amplification - so the point is, it simply sounded different. I took a long time to get to grips with it. But there is absolutely no question - we were surrounded by fans of both performers, who clearly loved every minute. And it's hard to imagine anyone with an emotional investment in either or both of the stars coming away disappointed. It actually made a welcome change from what one unfortunately sometimes hears on exiting the opera house or concert hall - certain attendees (casualties of extreme fandom, which can so easily damage the ability to simply enjoy oneself), racing to be the first to pick holes in a production or performance to their companions.

Here is some sample text from a recent review of ENO's 'The Winter's Tale' - I don't really want to name the reviewer:

I tweeted these 'grabs' when I saw them because they are everything I dislike in music writing. The lower one has that horrible 'Inner Smirk-le' tone that we are all sneering at a shared, hated production (well, I loved 'Thebans'). But the one on top seems to imply that if there's any difficulty or issue floating around a company or production, then it can and should be used as a kind of ammo, to back up whatever negative stuff one might want to say about it.

I reject that ill-meant smugness totally. As unlikely a pair as they may be, 'Meistersinger' and 'Carousel' have both reminded me how important it is to take what we see and hear onstage for what it is: a heady concoction of ideas, talent, effort and commitment, brought alive by gifted, dedicated people. We should never take them for granted.

Identity crisis

Huge decision for me, but I've been mulling it over - and saving up - for some time. After putting up for most of my life (since I realised at about age five or six that I couldn't read the words flashing up on the television) with my glasses, I've had enough. I've never managed to cope with contact lenses, either - partly due to just finding them uncomfortable, and no doubt also thanks to a prejudice against them since seeing one of my teachers clean his with his own saliva. (I had glasses by then, so I can assure you, that's definitely what he was doing.)

So - I'm going to have corrective laser eye surgery and get rid of the d____d specs once and for all. But - at that point, as perhaps you might - I gave pause. No more specs. Would that mean no more 'Specs'?

It's clear that once I get the op done, I can no longer call this blog by its current name. It wouldn't make any sense. I'm reluctant to let 'Specs' go, and the thought of having to build its enormous, loyal fanbase back up because no-one has any idea what it's called anymore fills me with dread. But it has to be done. To ease the problem, I've decided to get anyone who'd like to be involved in on the act and help me re-name the site.

I have made a start, but I'm not really that happy with my ideas so far:

• "Spexit", obviously. Not only would this be a nod to my old post about the referendum, but it would represent the cutting-edge satire for which this blog is justly famed. But I don't just want to jump on some kind of transient political bandwagon.
• "Specsavers", in that I'm saved from having to use specs any longer. But the name sounds familiar.
• "Corrective Laser Eye Surgery", in that it would be directly equivalent to what I use "Specs" for now. But I don't think it has the necessary 'zing' to it, somehow.
• "Eyes". Bit dull. Everyone has those.
• Possibly something else that I have to wear all the time. "Pants"?

As you can see, I'm struggling. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, not only by me, but by the vast number of site visitors who will probably be reluctant to type "Pants" into their search engines. Prizes should, perhaps, be awarded to those of you who check the date of this post before getting in touch.

Have a great weekend!