John Adams makes his Met Opera debut tonight with the opening of his opera Doctor Atomic. The New Yorker calls it "a striking example of the new Met’s range." The opera received its world premiere in October 2005 at the San Francisco Opera House with Maestra Donald Runnicles conducting; tonight, it receives its New York premiere under conductor Alan Gilbert, the music director designate of the New York Philharmonic, also making his company debut. Reprising their roles from the San Francisco production are "two superb singers," says The New Yorker: Gerald Finley, as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and Eric Owens, also in a Met debut.

Tonight's first performance also marks a first for director Penny Woolcock. While the original production and the succeeding Chicago staging were both directed by longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars, who also assembled the libretto, Met general manager Peter Gelb signed Woolcock on to the project for the new run. She directed the 2003 award-winning film version of Adams's 1990 opera The Death of Klinghoffer but is new to directing live opera. She spoke with the New York Times's Matthew Gurewitsch about this daunting undertaking and explains, in the writers words, how "she found that opera at its most retro—the Met’s Cecil B. DeMille-style Aida, for instance—had huge appeal." Says Woolcock: "Opera demands such a leap of faith, such a surrender to the hallucinogenic."

The Times also spoke with the the composer, Sellars, Owens, and Finley for the article, with the latter explaining his affinity for the project. "The strength of Doctor Atomic is the layered subtext," Finley tells Gourewitsch. "Each character has many agendas to get through. It’s very refreshing to reveal aspects that haven’t been seen."

He goes on to say of the composer's appeal:

"The wonder of John is that he challenges every orchestra to the limits of their capability. Each reading brings a firm new revelation of instrumental textures. Just as in Mozart there’s room for huge flexibility. Speed, dynamics, the buildup of intensity, the way you explore a passage of relaxation: you’re always hearing new melodies, new undercurrents. It never stops."

Read the article at nytimes.com.

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Woolcock also spoke with the Financial Times's George Loomis about the Met production, which will be shown live at movie theaters around the UK on November 8, and which transfers to the English National Opera next February. She tells Loomis that it was Adams's music that originally drew her to Klinghoffer and to Doctor Atomic. "John's music grows out of the finest lyrical tradition of operatic composition but it is part of the 20th and 21st centuries," she says in the article. "In John's music I can hear bits of Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix and the rhythms of today." You'll find that article at ft.com.

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AM New York theater critic Matt Windman recently spoke with the composer about the making of Doctor Atomic and his earlier operas. Read the interview at amny.com.

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As we recently reported in the Nonesuch Journal some of the best seats have been made available for the special, reduced price of $30 apiece, thanks to a very generous donation by Agnes Varis, a managing director of the Met board, and her husband Karl Leichtman. The couple are also sponsors of the production.

For information on these and all tickets to the production, running now through November 13, visit metoperafamily.org, where you'll find a great deal of information, videos, blog entries, and more on the Met's Doctor Atomic minisite.