LOS ANGELES: An opera is not supposed to be over until the fat lady sings. Or, in the case of a new work being premiered this week, until an atomic bomb explodes. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams’s latest opera ends with the biggest bang of all — the detonation of the first A-bomb in the New Mexican desert in a test that changed the world.

Adams, who has a reputation for writing works ‘ripped from the headlines’, has taken on his biggest challenge yet in Doctor Atomic, a tale of the conflicts Manhattan Project head J. Robert Oppenheimer suffered as he oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb.

The 2-1/2-hour work premieres on Saturday at the San Francisco Opera and it has become one of the opera world’s most hotly anticipated events. Adams’ previous two operas — Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer — stirred political controversy, especially the latter work, about the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro which outraged both Palestinian and Jewish groups.

Adams denies that he is a political composer and said in an interview, “Maybe the reason people use the term political is that I draw my stories from contemporary American life. I’m frankly surprised more people don’t do that. If I were a filmmaker or novelist, I would be expected to do that.”

He said he was expecting a mixed reception because many opera lovers just want to see famous singers in familiar works by Puccini, Straus, Mozart and Verdi.

Doctor Atomic, in its capacity to challenge people to think about nuclear weapons and the potential of their destroying the planet, is definitely not Madame Butterfly, he said.

“That’s something that may be new for opera audiences. Some people greet it warmly and with great appreciation. Others roll their eyeballs and wish it would go away.”—Reuters