About the work
Der Diktator is a tragic opera in one act (two scenes) by Ernst Krenek, to his own libretto, composed in 1926 as the first of a triptych of one-act operas. Its premiere was conducted by Joseph Rosenstock on 6 May 1928 at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, together with the one-actors "Das geheime Königreich" and "Schwergewicht oder Die Ehre der Nation".
Plot
At a hotel on Lake Geneva, a nameless dictator modelled on Mussolini is recovering from the strain of war, accompanied by his wife Charlotte. Maria, whose husband was blinded in the war, hates the dictator for his policies and confronts him with a revolver, only to fall under his charm. When Charlotte discovers them together, she fires at her husband out of jealousy but kills Maria instead; the dictator claims Maria took her own life over unhappy love, while her blind husband searches for her in vain.
Cultural significance
With its open allusion to Italian fascism, Der Diktator counts among the early musical-theatre warnings against authoritarian rule in 1920s Europe. Critics compared the roughly 35-minute one-acter to Puccini's "Il trittico" and read its lurid, verismo-tinged musical language as a deliberate counterpart to Krenek's contemporaneous "Jonny spielt auf".