13 June 2005

(boom)

Alex Ross has pointed out that John Adams [Wikipedia] is working on his third opera (libretto by bad boy Peter Sellars [Wikipedia]) to premiere in San Fran this October. It's titled Dr. Atomic and covers the hours leading up to the first atomic test [Wikipedia].

I may be clinging to a dead form, but I wish that there were a more active culture of modern historic opera. Adams' first two also covered relatively recent events: The Death of Klinghoffer [Wikipedia], about the Palestinian terrorist hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, and Nixon in China, about Nixon's 1972 visit to China. Why do historical operas seem more compelling than a fictional re-telling in, say, novel or movie form? I'm not sure.

[ posted by sstrader on 13 June 2005 at 1:17:27 PM in Music ]