World-renowned director Peter Sellars wrote the libretto of the opera Dr. Atomic by composer John Adams. It was first produced in 2005, but is having its New Mexico premiere at the Santa Fe opera this Saturday. The opera enacts the drama of the hours before the Trinity test, the first atomic bomb test, in Alamogordo, New Mexico. We discuss the significance of staging the opera so close to Los Alamos, and the imperative of dealing with the destructive power of the bomb and other weapons of mass death.