About the work
Opera in one act by Viktor Ullmann to a libretto by Petr Kien, composed in 1943/44 in the Theresienstadt ghetto; the final page of the score is dated 8 November 1943. Rehearsals in the summer of 1944 under conductor Rafael Schächter never led to the planned performance, probably because the SS banned the openly anti-Nazi work; the world premiere did not take place until 16 December 1975, given by the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam.
Plot
Emperor Overall rules tyrannically and wages endless war; when the personified figure of Death refuses to carry out his orders, no one can die any longer, and the country descends into chaos. Only when the Emperor agrees to become Death's first victim does Death resume its work. Ullmann and his librettist Kien shaped the piece as an allegory of Hitler and Nazi terror.
Cultural significance
Der Kaiser von Atlantis is regarded as one of the most significant works created in the Theresienstadt ghetto and a striking testament to artistic resistance under mortal danger. Ullmann and Kien were deported to Auschwitz in October 1944 and murdered there, never having witnessed the premiere of their work.