Ullmann: The Emperor of Atlantis

Viktor Ullmann's opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis is a moving piece. Not only does this piece immediately captivate you in terms of its content, but the story of its creation is also distressing: Ullmann wrote Der Kaiser von Atlantis in the Theresienstadt ghetto. During the nearly two years that Ullmann spent in the ghetto, before he was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to meet his death, he strove to maintain a musical life in the bleakest environment imaginable. More than a third of all his compositions were created in the ghetto. Der Kaiser von Atlantis is his only opera from this period (a second opera, based on Jeanne d'Arc, could not be completed). The plot is remarkable: in the face of the Emperor's declaration of war "against all," Death refuses to perform his duty. A disease breaks out among the fighting soldiers: they can no longer die. An uprising breaks out among the soldiers: they refuse to continue obeying the war orders, but the Emperor refuses to give up the war. Death then makes him an offer: he is prepared to resume his work if the Emperor agrees to be the first to follow him. The Emperor agrees and goes to his death to keep the war alive. The shocking plot of the opera is one of the most remarkable documents of its time, especially in the context of the circumstances of its creation during the reign of terror of National Socialism. The now-available recording is the first to be based on the opera's handwritten manuscript. The performance, which was recorded at the Festival Musiques des Lumières, was preceded by three years of intensive preparation by everyone involved.