DR. ATOMIC
A Collaboration with The Santa Fe Opera and Simply Social Media
Out of 1500 images submitted to the Santa Fe Opera in conjunction with Simply Social Media, Max's photograph was awarded the grand prize in 2017. As a result, Max was given the opportunity to take backstage photos during a 2018 season performance of Dr. Atomic.
Written in 2005, Dr. Atomic is a contemporary opera by composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars that explores the inner turmoil of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer as he helps develop the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos Laboratories. Santa Fe Opera's Crosby Theatre is coincidentally situated just 20 miles from Los Alamos.
"Sellars invited members of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, which seeks justice for people harmed by radiation, to appear onstage. Meanwhile, a group of indigenous dancers offered to perform the traditional sacred Corn Dance for opera audiences. The dance served as a preamble to the opera; later on, in Act II, the dancers reemerged, performing the Corn Dance to Adams’ music." (Rinaldi, Ray Mark. "Dialogue in the Desert." Opera America. January 2020)
