I've always been captivated by scientific exploration and discovery. The facts yielded by its curiosity are revealing, to be sure, but the faculties displayed by our mammalian brains whose capacity to interpret, process, and theorize about existential truths is fascinating to me. This fascination led me to explore the mystery surrounding the people and events leading to the discovery of the nuclear chain reaction and the subsequent race to develop an atomic bomb, for there cannot be a human undertaking more intellectually daunting and morally controversial, or a story more compelling.

My interest lay not in the birth of a weapon, but in the lives of the people who labored in the uncertainties of theoretical science and ethical responsibility toward its completion. Like Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Greek mythological story of Pandora's Box the lesson isn't learned until it's too late. Similarly, the experience of witnessing the first atomic explosion in the New Mexico pre-dawn sky led Robert Oppenheimer to recall a phrase from the Baghavad Gita, the Hindu scripture, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

This story was indeed fertile with the substance of drama, and tragedy.

In the early winter of 2002 I met with my friend Thomas Viall, a screenwriter and movie maker, who sparked the idea of producing the story as a dramatized musical narrative. We soon landed on the concept of an opera, the perfect vehicle for such emotionally charged material. We began furiously researching the topic, reading books, watching films and documentaries, and poring over dozens of websites on the subject. We met regularly throughout that winter, and carefully sifted through the information that we had accumulated to isolate the historical elements that would best serve the story. Finally, we reduced the narrative to its essential components, Helia Rising took shape, and I began to develop the libretto.

The personalities, loyalties and actions of those who directly participated in the program were eventually refined to three major characters: Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, General Leslie R. Groves, and Leo Szilard, the protagonist, antagonist, and moral conscience of the work respectively. The nuclear chain reaction itself would be cast as Helia, a siren whose seductive qualities would provide an effective dramatic representation of the object of their desire. Essentially, her creation would constitute the act of conception:

> Read the story outline and libretto

Leo's Discovery: On a misty London morning in 1934 Szilard discovered the nuclear chain reaction, but fearful of its potency as a weapon he vowed to keep the information secret from Germany. The myopic nature of his laboratory experiments and his exacting methods demanded a similarly meticulous musical style. I rigorously employed melodic and harmonic symmetry as a structural component, and limited the melody to precise intervals of a second, with few exceptions. His Hungarian roots were suggested by using musical elements from the Hungarian folk music style which renders his motif in a recognizably exotic flavor. This motif would recur throughout the opera as a representation of his troubled conscience.

Gertrude's Lament: Szilard's wife (Gertrude Weiss) wakes in the night from a fitful sleep and laments over the approaching outbreak of war in Europe. The lyrics are peppered with references to a disquieting sense of calm before the storm ("a restless sea", "a nervous night", "anxious clouds") and is echoed in the music by a shifting tonality which hovers uneasily around the key of e-flat minor. Her distress is reinforced using unstable ornamental turns toward the end of her melodic phrases, and these are emphasized in the accompaniment. Aware of the importance of Szilard's discovery, she urges him to carefully consider his responsibility, to be mindful of the past, and to follow his conscience.

> Read the biography for Emlyn Ellis Addison