John Adams's 2005 opera Doctor Atomic receives its UK premiere tonight in the English National Opera production at the London Coliseum. The production, based on the Metropolitan Opera's New York premiere last fall, is directed by Penny Woolcock and stars Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and Sasha Cooke as his wife, Kitty Oppenheimer. Conductor Lawrence Renes leads the ENO Orchestra and Chorus in the performances, which run through March 20. Tonight's premiere will be preceded by a pre-performance talk at the venue by Anthony Arblaster.

The Independent's Rhoda Koenig takes a look at the opera and goes behind the scenes of the current production. She quotes the composer in her description of the opera's more prominent musical themes:

When Oppenheimer quotes Baudelaire, there is a quick reference to "the sensibility of French music," and there are nods to Wagner and Debussy, but a more important influence is Adams's early love, Duke Ellington, with his "jabs" and "bullets" that power the long, propulsive sections of eagerness and dread.

Read the article at independent.co.uk.

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Stephen Graham, the contemporary music editor at musicalcriticism.com, sees Adams "at the forefront of contemporary opera composition" and his works in the genre "required listening for anyone interested in contemporary music theatre." He continues:

Adams has shown himself a subtle choreographer of large-scale movements of drama, and equally of stilling moments of great inner turmoil. He has an even-handed and always nuanced approach to the dramaturgy of history which imbues his works with their lasting ambiguity, and fascination.

The article can be found at musicalcriticism.com.

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Last night, Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra performed Adams's 1996 orchestral piece Slonimsky's Earbox in a program at London's Barbican Hall. The Independent's Edward Seckerson writes that it offered "a smaller bang" to precede tonight's big bang of a premiere in the city with Doctor Atomic. He writes:

This is essentially Adams’ Stravinsky’s homage. The musical snakes and ladders of the explosive opening throw up all manner of harmonic incident and we even appear to drop in on Petrushka’s Shrovetide Fair, such is the motoric, almost folksy, manner of the writing. But ultimately the pulsations are pure Adams: another hairy ride in one of his fast machines which on this occasion had Vänskä and the orchestra taking awkward corners with Formula One skill. Me, I liked the still centre of the piece where one viola echoed by the others seemed almost to invoke the Samuel Barber which followed.

Read the full concert review at independent.co.uk.