Thanks To Rostropovich & Michelle And Barack Obama's Chicago Lyric Opera, Sharon Rockefeller's WETA Forced To Broadcast Shostakovich #9 And John Adams

This month's NSO Showcase: May 7, 2008, 9 p.m.

A Tribute to Mstislav Rostropovich

Featured artists:

Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor
Mayu Kishima, violin

Featured music:

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 64
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5

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Chicago Lyric Opera Broadcasts

May 17 at 1:00pm

Chicago Lyric Opera

John Adams: Doctor Atomic

Conductor: Robert Spano

Cast:

J. Robert Oppenheimer / Gerald Finley
Kitty Oppenheimer / Jessica Rivera
Edward Teller / Richard Paul Fink
General Leslie Groves / Eric Owens
Robert Wilson / Thomas Glenn
Pasqualita / Meredith Arwady
Jack Hubbard / James Maddalena
Capt. James Nolan / Roger Honeywell

Plot summary:

Director Peter Sellars takes us to Los Alamos, New Mexico. It's 1945. Scientists are working on a top-secret project for the U.S. government: development of the A–Bomb. We're there for the frenzied three weeks before the blast, and we're there for the final countdown. We watch real people grapple with monumental moral and ethical dilemmas. Could "the gadget" ignite the world's atmosphere?

At the helm, the mercurial Robert Oppenheimer; plus a take-no-prisoners general and scientists — some hawks, some doves — racing for a "successful" conclusion — and unleashing the unfathomable.





















Gerald Finley stars as Robert Oppenheimer in the Peter Sellars-directed Doctor Atomic.

Hopi Zuni War God c. 1930

'A traditional Hopi Kachina of the Zuni Dark Warrior God of the Nadir. The piece is carved of Cottonwood root and painted with a combination of mineral pigments and poster paints of the era. The piece is adorned with turkey and pheasant feathers on the head and the ruff.'

An America beyond skin color and horrid and recurrent threats of nuclear obliteration?

Photo credits: (c) Terrence McCarthy/San Francisco Opera. All rights reserved. And (c) Sherwood, Spirits of America, Santa Fe, New Mexico. All rights reserved. With thanks.