Instead of rushing with an instant review of a new opera - as most critics
must - Steven Winn today takes a thoughtful look "in hindsight" at the
John Adams/Peter Sellars "Doctor Atomic" which premiered in the War
Memorial on Saturday:

   http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/06/DDGP7F2IJC1.DTL

I am glad to see Winn's lead, about the bomb-and-cradle image overstaying
its welcome, which I mentioned in the "instant" review of

   http://www.sandiego-online.com/opera/opera.shtml

  "What could have been a striking image, the bomb suspended over
  a cradle, is used endlessly in the second act, which seriously
  blunts the intended effect. Unlike the perhaps excessive trust
  in the listener's education and intelligence elsewhere, here
  Sellars and his design team keep making a point, until it becomes
  moot."

- but when Winn wonders if "a certain alienation effect was *intended*"
I rather believe that Adams and Sellars did not mean to distance the
audience deliberately, that the problems of the second act are caused
by running out of creative juices.

Winn describes "Doctor Atomic" as "bending back on itself over
its three-hour running time...  in all its calculation, solemnity
and analytical rigor." My take was that the glowing high points of
"old-fashioned opera" in "Doctor Atomic" will assure its success
and survival, making long stretches of post-modernistic calculation
and distancing (kind terms for the opera's artistic weaknesses) worth
sitting through...  awaiting the next outburst of plain-speaking music
of emotion.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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