Thursday 26 July 2012

Der Kaiser von Atlantis

Der Kaiser von Atlantis, oder Die Tod-Verweigerung (The Emperor of Atlantis, or Death's Refusal) is a one-act opera by Viktor Ullmann with a libretto by Peter Kien. Both Ullmann and Kien were inmates at the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt (TerezĂ­n), where they collaborated on the opera, around 1943.While the opera received a rehearsal at Theresienstadt in March 1944, it was never performed there, as the Nazi authorities saw in the depiction of Kaiser Overall a satire on Adolf Hitler and banned the opera. Both the composer and the librettist died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.