Viktor Ullmann - Der Kaiser Von Atlantis

Viktor ULLMANN (1898-1944)

Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Op. 49b

Live at Prinzregenten Theater, Munich 10/10/2021

Lars Woldt (bass), Christel Loetzsch (mezzo-soprano), Johannes Chum (tenor), Tareq Nazmi (bass), Adrian Eröd (baritone), Juliana Zara (soprano)

Munich Radio Orchestra

Patrick Hahn

"Viktor Ullmann's one-act chamber opera ""Der Kaiser von Atlantis"" was written in the Theresienstadt camp and did not see its premiere until December 16, 1975 in Amsterdam, since the performance had been banned after its dress rehearsal in 1944. The concert performance of the version by Henning Brauel and Andreas Krause (Schott), which took place on October 10, 2021 at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, was recorded for this CD. Alongside the internationally renowned Austrian Kammersänger Adrian Eröd in the title role, mainly young performers sang, accompanied by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Patrick Hahn, who made his debut here as the orchestra's principal guest conductor. Viktor Ullmann, born in 1898 in Teschen, Silesia, studied with Arnold Schönberg and Alois Hába in Vienna. He worked first as a bandmaster and then as a bookseller, and settled in Prague as a freelance artist in 1933. Because he came from a Jewish family, he was deported to the Theresienstadt camp by the Nazis in 1942. In October 1944 he was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, together with composers Pavel Haas and Hans Krása, who were almost the same age. - Since the Nazis allowed a lively cultural life in their ""showcase camp"" of Theresienstadt, Ullmann was also able to be musically active. The intellectual and cultural heritage of that time is reflected in his music – also, and especially, in the ""one-act play"" that he wrote there entitled „Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder Die Tod-Verweigerung"" (The Emperor of Atlantis or the Disobedience of Death), based on the libretto by his fellow prisoner Peter Kien. - The play begins with a concept that is as absurd as it is comforting: Death goes on strike. He is weary of his existence, and refuses to serve. In many ways, this reflects the reality of life for those deported to Theresienstadt. The opera, set in the legendary Atlantis, is a parable of the inhuman system of the National Socialists. The message of the work is just as relevant today."

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Music and the Holocaust

Born in Tesin (Silesia) on 1 January 1898, Ullmann grew up and was educated in Vienna.  He participated in Schoenberg's advanced courses in 1918-19, and at Schoenberg's recommendation, became one of Alexander Zemlinsky's conducting assistants at the New German Theatre in Prague in the 1920s.  How highly Zemlinsky regarded him is seen in his having entrusted Ullmann with the preparation of Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, as well as operas of Mozart, Strauss, Wagner, Berg and others, which he also conducted on occasion in place of Zemlinsky.  During the 1927-28 season, Ullmann became First Kapellmeister at the municipal theatre in Aussig.  In both cities, Ullmann enjoyed a reputation as an excellent, conscientious and capable conductor.  An active member of the Schoenberg circle, Ullmann was also a devoted follower of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical movement.  In the 1930s he composed, taught and wrote articles for German musical publications in Prague.

Following unsuccessful efforts to find work in London or South Africa, Ullmann was trapped in Prague after the German invasion in March 1939.  In 1942 he was deported to Terezin.  Rather exceptionally, instead of being given a customary work assignment, Ullmann was instead asked by the Freizeitgestaltung (Leisure time authority) to occupy himself with music, serving as critic and concert organiser (including the Studio for New Music, which he founded, and the Collegium Musicum) as well as assisting on other performances, lecturing on such subjects as Mahler's First Symphony, anthroposophy and music and other topics.  He also had more time to compose, which accounts for his unusually prolific production in comparison to the other Terezin composers.

Besides his impressive list of original compositions – three piano sonatas, a string quartet, several dozen Lieder, orchestral works and an opera, The Emperor of Atlantis or Death Abdicates – Ullmann made, upon request, a number of vocal arrangements of Yiddish and Hebrew songs.  In addition to his extensive concert reviews, he wrote several essays, an opera libretto and a literary diary, The Strange Passenger, a collection of poems and aphorisms.  This latter document discloses Ullmann's deep despondency, his conflict about his Jewish identity, his basically Christian religiosity and his cynicism.  Nevertheless, in a frequently-quoted essay, ‘Goethe and Ghetto’, Ullmann considers the meaning of Goethe for ‘educated Europeans’ in both daily living and culture . But where the interaction of life and art had earlier allowed the easier creation of beautiful forms, in Terezin this was difficult, ‘where anything connected with the muses is in utter contrast to the surroundings.’   Maintaining that future generations would find no interest in the lack of pianos and music paper, Ullmann concludes in a profound expression of his and his colleagues' reserves of spiritual strength:

"it must be emphasised that Theresienstadt has served to enhance, not to impede, my musical activities, that by no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon, and that our endeavour with respect to Arts was commensurate with our will to live.  And I am convinced that all those who, in life and in art, were fighting to force form upon resisting matter, will agree with me."

Ullmann was deported to Auschwitz on 16 October 1944, in one of the last transports, where he died in the gas chamber.

By David Bloch