Graham Meyer

"The audience in Oedipus Rex knew what was coming," said Doctor Atomic librettist and director Peter Sellars in his pre-concert lecture at Lyric Opera last night. He was drawing a comparison between Greek drama, when the stories being staged were traditional tales already known to the theatergoers, and Doctor Atomic, which is based on the real-life testing of the first atomic bomb, in 1945. The second half of Sellars's talk took listeners through the opera scene by scene, describing what would happen, what he thought was great about it, and his anti–nuclear weapons politics...