The army officer in charge of the Manhattan Project, General Groves, the chief meteorologist Frank Hubbard, and Robert Oppenheimer are having a meeting to decide what to do. While everything is set in place for testing the bomb, a massive unexpected electrical storm is raging. It is a scene in which politics and science collide. The scene in question (the final scene of the first act) takes place on 15 July 1945, the night of the testing of the bomb. In a telling scene, he doesn’t even realize that his own conviction – that whether to use the bomb is a technical question to be decided by the government, on the basis of scientific information – is belied. What happens around him no longer seems to influence him. He seems to be lost in his world, the world of the superhuman, and is increasingly self-absorbed. Having assigned to himself the role of the isolated scientist, Oppenheimer is no longer attuned to what is happening around him. Is Oppenheimer’s loneliness, however, only due to holding the secrets of the most ultimate destruction? Is it not also related to the fact that he is working cut-off from society, developing his discoveries in secret, and having no say in the ways this work will be used? Evidently, being superhuman means being different from the rest of the people. We may ask, though, what is the root of the loneliness of the superhuman, to which Oppenheimer refers. But for Oppenheimer, it also entails a great deal of loneliness. Being superhuman means being able to do things great and horrible, beyond what everyday people would ever dream to realise. Undoubtedly, the power to create an atomic bomb can be seen as an exemplary case of having superhuman powers. Oppenheimer, on his side, reflects on being made “superhuman.” “The motive of it all was loneliness,” sings Kitty, and she cries for a return to life, humanity and love. However, the duet soon turns to two overlapping monologues, as the two characters express their concerns over the pending drop of the atomic bomb. The libretto resorts to poetry to give voice to the characters, enabling them to express their love to each other. It reflects a private moment between Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty. The opera’s second scene takes place in the Oppenheimers’ household.
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