“Barbenheimer” is real!

The unlikely grassroots fusion of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” has managed to blow the lid off a moribund box office, with Hollywood experiencing its fourth highest-grossing three-day weekend OF ALL TIME (not adjusted for inflation). It’s nice to know there will be something to lend the era some pop-cultural flavor, for a change, when VH1 goes to assemble its inevitable nostalgic retrospective about the 2020s.

I haven’t seen either movie, but the sudden prevalence of Oppenheimer, who made his home in Princeton, as director of the Institute for Advanced Study for nearly 20 years, brings to mind John Adams’ opera “Doctor Atomic,” from 2005. The opera examines the stresses and anxieties surrounding preparations for the Trinity test, with Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” a central figure.

In 2007, Adams fashioned some of the material into a “Doctor Atomic Symphony,” originally in four movements, at 45 minutes in length, introduced at the BBC Proms. He tightened it up into three movement, running some 25 minutes, presented without break, for its U.S. premiere and subsequent recording. I heard it for the first time on a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra this past season.

The opera’s standout aria seems to be “Batter My Heart,” a setting of John Donne’s 14th Holy Sonnet. It’s intriguingly staged here:

Adams recalls the music for the final movement of his symphony, here complete in its revised form:

The symphony in its original four-movement version:

I can’t think of any Barbie operas off the top of my head. However, Michael Daugherty, who’s made a career out of composing music inspired by our pop-cultural detritus, wrote a cantata, “What’s That Spell?,” in 1995, for two “Barbie-sopranos” backed by rock and roll chamber orchestra.

In terms of the movie itself, I have learned that Richard Strauss’ iconic fanfare from “Also sprach Zarathustra” opens the film (in yet another nod to Kubrick), before its soundtrack finds a more expected groove in the employment of pop, rap, and dance music. There’s a spoiler-free article and clip of the opening scene here:

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/periods-genres/film-tv/barbie-strauss-2001-space-odyssey/

I guess on some level I must have known, but since it holds no interest for me, personally, and since I don’t have kids, it’s been at best like swatting off the occasional gnat, but there have been many other Barbie “movies,” presumably released straight-to-video. And, taking a page from the old Warner Bros. “Looney Tunes,” it looks like they employ a lot of classical music. (I guess it doesn’t hurt that the music is in the public domain.) One diehard fan actually made it a point to compile all of it.

Here’s hoping your summer of 2023 is a pop-culturally memorable one. What are you waiting for? Start assembling your “Barbenheimer” playlist now!