Doctor Atomic

"Live at the Met" is showing, right now on PBS, a production of John Adams's opera "Doctor Atomic," about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the first atomic bomb test in 1945. My wife was watching it and called me in, thinking that I might wish to get a taste of what it is like. I watched as the Oppenheimer and Teller characters sang at each other--very atonally, with no melodic resolution whatsoever--about the advisability of testing "the gadget" before using it on the Japanese.

"Not really very hummable, is it?" I said.

"No," she agreed.

A little later, I couldn't help but say, "Why the hell did anybody write an opera about this?"

Then after watching a while more, I said, "It's very interesting, but it ain't what I call rock'n'roll."

She said, "It ain't what I call Verdi, either."