Viktor Ullmann
The Emperor of Atlantis or The Refusal of Death
Play in one act by Peter Kien

The parable is a harrowing historical document that remains relevant today. Confronted with a killing machine, Death goes on strike and only resumes his service to humanity once the tyrannical ruler Overall has abdicated. The one-act opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis) was composed in 1943/44 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto and rehearsed there, but was never performed. Both the composer and the librettist were murdered in Auschwitz in the fall of 1944. The documents related to the work were miraculously preserved and are now mostly held by the Paul Sacher Stiftung.

The facsimile now compiles all known sources and gives interested readers the opportunity to form their own opinion regarding the work's genesis and form. Viktor Ullmann's fair copy bears numerous traces of the creative process and revisions, while Peter Kien's handwritten libretto, as well as the typed version found on spec sheets belonging to deported Jewish women and Death’s script, contain important textual variants, which are clearly presented in a synopsis. Five scholarly essays shed light on the work's genesis and editorial history, questions of musical analysis and style, and the work’s reception over the past fifty years.

Contents + Introduction PDF here

order from Bärenreiter
order no: BVK02350
295 pages – hardcover, clothbound – 39.5 x 30.5 cm
ISBN 978-3-7618-2350-7
EUR 199