Events for a New Opera

The San Francisco Opera Web site now has an extensive listing of events related to the premiere of Doctor Atomic. (It is also mirrored at the Doctor Atomic Web site.)

The calendar starts in July, when the Simnuke Project attempts to simulate a nuclear explosion in the Nevada desert. This will be followed by a gallery show in San Francisco about the simulated explosion. In August, there is a San Francisco Opera Guide celebration on the Peninsula, and the Commonwealth Club looks at world security issues on August 3 in a round-table discussion that includes Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

September and October bring a host of mouth-watering events:

• The Exploratorium has a talk featuring Richard Rhodes in conversation with John Adams and Peter Sellars, on Tuesday, September 13 at 7 p.m.


• The cast and production team talk about the opera at Herbst Theater, S.F., on Thursday, September 22, at 6 p.m.


• The Consortium for the Arts & Arts Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, will sponsor a free evening symposium, at Wheeler Hall on the UCB Campus, called "Science and the Soul: Robert Oppenheimer and Doctor Atomic." John Adams and Peter Sellars will talk; there will be a musical preview; Dean of Physical Sciences Mark Richards, Physics Professor Marvin Cohen, and Artistic Director of the San Francisco Opera Pamela Rosenberg will also partcipate. (Monday, September 26, 8 pm)


• The UCB Art Department will sponsor a lecture on "the U.S. government competition for a monument at the site of the first atomic bomb test" on September 22.


• A composer's colloquium with John Adams is planned, but the date hasn't been announced yet.


• On all Wednesdays and Sundays in October, the Pacific Film Archive will show films related to the bomb, the effects of nuclear war, and "the Faustian aspects of science and technology."


• On October 15, there will be a reading at UCB by 22 poets of new work created for the occasion.


• Amazing Light: Visions for Discovery is a three-day symposium, October 6 - 8, in honor of the 90th birthday of Charles Townes, inventor of the laser, and in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's accomplishments in 2005 and the 2005 World Year of Physics.


• The Jung Institute has a one-day event on October 8 with John Adams called "The Faust Myth and the Archetype of the Apocalypse."


• In conjunction with the Word Year of Physics, the American Physical Society will sponsor a number of events related to Doctor Atomic, but none of these are enumerated at the SFO Web site and a very curosry look at the APS Web site didn't yield anything yet either.

There's more detail to come, I'm sure. And I will be at many of these events.