The Emperor of Atlantis or The Refusal of Death (Facsimile, hardback)

Ullmann The Emperor of Atlantis or The Refusal of Death (Facsimile, hardback)

This parable is a harrowing document of its time, and has lost none of its relevance today.  Faced with the tyrant Overall’s killing machine, Death goes on strike: His service to humankind will only be resumed when the ruler has abdicated.  

The one-act opera “The Emperor of Atlantis” was written and rehearsed in 1943–44 in the Theresienstadt ghetto camp, but was not performed.  The composer and librettist were both murdered in Auschwitz in the fall of 1944, but the documents related to the piece miraculously survived.  Since its premiere in Amsterdam in 1975, “The Emperor of Atlantis” has been staged in numerous productions worldwide and is firmly established in the repertoire.

The facsimile makes the surviving sources available in a printed reproduction of the highest quality: not just Viktor Ullmann’s fair copy of the score, showing numerous traces of the composer’s working and revision, but also Peter Kien’s manuscript libretto, together with the copy typed on data sheets by female Jewish deportees and Death’s part book.

Five essays discuss the history of the work’s creation and editing, musicological and stylistic questions, and also its reception over the past fifty years.

- Exceptionally important source, both musically and historically

- Reflects conditions of musical life in the Theresienstadt ghetto camp

- Allows a comprehensive understanding and informed interpretation of the work

- Documenta musicologica II/60 / Bärenreiter Facsimile