| Operas by Viktor Ullmann |
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Operas
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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 (Terezín), where they collaborated on the opera, around 1943.[1] 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.
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The title is sometimes given as Der Kaiser von Atlantis, oder Der Tod dankt ab, that is, The Emperor of Atlantis, or Death Abdicates.[2] Rather than an opera, it is called a "legend in four scenes."
Ullmann entrusted his manuscripts to a fellow-prisoner, Dr. Emil Utiz, former Professor of Philosophy at the German University in Prague, who served as the camp's librarian. Utiz survived the camp and passed the manuscripts on to another survivor, Dr. Hans G. Adler, a friend of Ullmann's, some of whose poems Ullmann had set to music. The score was a working version with edits substitutions, and alternatives made in the course of rehearsals. Through informal personal connections, the score came to the attention of conductor Kerry Woodward. In the process of preparing a performing edition of the score, Woodward consulted Rosemary Brown. Brown was a prominent spiritualist, known for mediumship with dead composers and for transcribing musical works they dictated. She said she contacted Ullmann and communicated his instructions to Woodward, who incorporated them into his edition. At Brown's direction, Woodward altered the instrumentation of the second part of Death's aria near the end of the opera, substituting strings for harpsichord and adding trumpet and flute.[3]
The Netherlands Opera presented the world premiere of the opera with Woodward conducting his edition on December 16, 1975, at the Bellevue Centre, Amsterdam.[4] The production was repeated the following year in Brussels and Spoleto[5] and recreated in April 1977 by the San Francisco Spring Opera Theater for the American premiere. The New Opera Theater presented the New York premiere at the Lepercq Space at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 19, 1977. All these performances were conducted by Woodward.[6][7]
In 1981, Michael Graubert and Nicholas Till prepared an edition based on the manuscripts in Dr. Adler's possession and Woodward's edition, following many of Woodward's choices but preferring the 1943 text to the changes made on the basis of Brown's contribution. That provided the basis for the British premiere at the Studio Theatre of London's Morley College on May 15, 1981 and for additional performances in May 1985 at the Imperial War Museum.[3]
A further reconstruction of the original score of the opera started in 1992 and 1993. Ingo Schultz was responsible for the musical research. This edition was staged by the Staatstheater Saarbrücken (Germany) and by ARBOS – Gesellschaft für Musik und Theater (Austria). ARBOS presented the opera in Austria, the Czech Republic (including the first performance at the concentration camp of Theresienstadt in 1995), Germany, Sweden, Canada, and the U.S. (including a performance at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum). Other acclaimed performances have recently been given by City Opera of Vancouver (2009), Long Beach Opera (2009), Boston Lyric Opera (2011), and Dioneo Opera, of London (2011).
The score comprises 20 short sections and last about fifty minutes.[6] Parts of it are danced and there are long spoken sections.[8] The 1943 orchestration is for chamber ensemble and includes such unusual instruments as banjo and harmonium. Alto saxophone and harpsichord also appear. Ullmann used the famous Lutheran chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott as a melodic motif as well as a theme from the Asrael symphony of Josef Suk. Critics list among Ullmann's antecedents and influences "the radical young Hindemith"[8] as well as Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg. One critic has said Ullmann employed "an omnivorous musical language that draws on both classical and popular styles."[7] The work ends with the chorale to the text "Come, Death, who art our worthy guest."[6]
The character of Harlequin is sometimes called Pierrot, a different character from the commedia dell'arte. The classic Pierrot is moonstruck and a sleepwalker. In the opera, this character is an old man who twice recites poems Kien had written earlier. The first describes a cold and pitiless moon, establishing his identity as Pierrot. Later he sings a lullaby that uses a text Kien wrote as a paraphrase of another lullaby text, one familiar to all his contemporaries in the camp, that had been sung during the Thirty Years' War. Ullmann set it to a catchy melody composed by Johann Friedrich Reichardt in 1781.[9]
Dr. Adler donated the original manuscript and two copies of the libretto in his possession to the Goetheanum in Dornach,[3] the center for the anthroposophical movement with which Ullmann was associated.
| Role | Voice type | Theresienstadt rehearsals |
Premiere cast December 16, 1975 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaiser Overall (Emperor Overall) | baritone | Walter Windholz[9] | Meinard Kraak[10] |
| Der Lautsprecher (Announcer) | bass-baritone | Bedrich Borges[9] | Lodewijk Meeuwsen[10] |
| Ein Soldat (A soldier) | tenor | David Grünfeld[9] | Rudolf Ruivenkamp[10] |
| Harlekin (Pierrot) | tenor | David Grünfeld[9] | Adriaan van Limpt[10] |
| Bubikopf (A maiden) | soprano | Marion Podolier[9][11] | Roberta Alexander[10] |
| Der Tod (Death) | bass-baritone | Karel Berman[9] | Tom Haenen |
| Der Trommler (Drummer girl) | mezzo-soprano | Hilde Aronson‐Lindt[9][11] | Inge Frölich[10] |
Descriptions and summaries of Kien's libretto vary widely. John Rockwell described the opera as a story of "the abdication of death in the face of life's universal horrors."[7] Harold Schonberg thought "the play is stronger and more interesting than the music....In several spots the Ullmann work almost makes it as an opera."[5] Most summaries report that Death insists that the Emperor be the first to die, but others report a variation in which "miraculously, the Emperor comes to understand his crimes" and "to allow Death to save millions from the agony of life-without-death, he offers himself as Death's first victim."[12]
In an interview, conductor James Conlon, a prominent reviver of works lost in the Holocaust, described the work as both a political satire and a parable of hope in which the isolated Emperor represents Hitler and the Drummer his confidante Eva Braun. The young lovers and Pierrot embody "the lost world of normal human emotion."[12]
Andrew Porter has described the text of the opera: "The plot is no cut-and-dried allegory but an elusive death-welcoming parable about a mad, murderous ruler, possibly redeemed at last, who says farewell to the world in a mock-Faustian vision of a natural paradise no longer spoiled by men; had his dream come true all men would be dead. The Emperor of Atlantis, ruler over much of the world, proclaims universal war and declares that his old ally Death will lead the campaign. Death, offended by the Emperor's presumption, breaks his sabre; henceforth men will not die. Confusion results: a Soldier and a Girl-Soldier from opposite sides sing a love duet instead of fighting; the sick and suffering find no release. Death offers to return to men on one condition–that the Emperor be the first to die. He accepts and sings his farewell."[6]
Prologue[13]
A voice heard over a loudspeaker sets the scene and presents the characters.
Scene 1
Harlequin describes his sorry life without laughter or love. Death joins him and togther they lament how slowly time passes in their grim environment. Death belittles Harlequin's wish to die and explains how much more dire his own situation is than that of Harlequin. He lacks respect now that the "old-fashioned craft of dying" has been replaced by "motorized chariots of war" that work him to exhaustion with little satisfaction.
The Drummer announces the latest decree of the Emperor: Everyone will be armed and everyone will fight until there are no survivors. Death denounces the Emperor for usurping his role: "To take men's souls is my job, not his!" He declares that he is on strike and breaks his saber.
Scene 2
In his palace, the Emperor gives battle orders and monitors the progress of the universal war. He learns of a man who continues to live eighty minutes after being hanged and shot. The Loudspeaker reports that thousands of soldiers are "wrestling with life...doing their best to die" without success. Fearful that his power will not endure without death, the Emperor announces that he has decided to reward his subjects with the gift of eternal life. More honestly, he asks: "Death, where is thy sting? Where is thy victory, Hell?"
Scene 3
A Soldier and a Maiden (the Bobbed-Hair Girl) confront one other as enemies. Unable to kill each other, their thoughts turn to love. They dream of distant places where kind words exist alongside "meadows filled with color and fragrance." The Drummer attempts to lure them back to battle with the sensual attraction of the call. The Maiden responds: "Now death is dead and so we need to fight no more!" She and the Soldier sing: "Only love can unite us, unite us all together."
Scene 4
The Emperor continues to oversee his failing realm, where his subjects angrily protest their suspension in limbo between life and death. Harlequin appeals to him, reminding him of his innocent childhood. The Drummer urges the Emperor to maintain his resolve, but the Emperor's memories turn his thoughts from his plans for the annihilation of all. Instead he gazes into a covered mirror and asks: "What do men look like? Am I still a man or just the adding machine of God?"
He pulls away the mirror's cloth and faces the reflection of Death. "Who are you?" he demands. Death describes his role modestly, like that of a gardener "who roots up wilting weeds, life's worn-out fellows." He regrets the pain his strike is causing. When the Emperor asks him to resume his duties, Death proposes a resolution to the crisis: "I'm prepared to make peace, if you are prepared to make a sacrifice: will you be the first one to try out the new death?" After some resistance, the Emperor agrees and the suffering people find release in death once more. The Emperor sings his farewell. In a closing chorus, Death is praised and asked to "teach us to keep your holiest law: Thou shalt not use the name of Death in vain now and forever!"