Adams, the great contemporary composer, wrote an opera called Dr. Atomic essentially about Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. It is something of a masterpiece of reflection. Frankly, to hear it scares me as the entire episode in history is a scary proposition at best and humanity at its worse. The mind can and did produce amazing things - feats of scientific prowess that to this day I look at with awe. On other days, when I remember "duck and cover" in 1st grade because the Soviets were sure to attack Dayton, OH and do their deeds...when I encountered the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina - with 40 years later, 25,000 people, all with security clearances, working still on weapons and their "fuel", when my path went to Oak Ridge for a time and I got to really see a 'walled city', created out of nothing, and very much the American model of a soviet camp but with a constitution...well this opera takes on new meaning.
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