Composer: Viktor Ullmann
Performer: Lars Woldt, Christel Loetzsch, Johannes Chum, Tareq Nazmi, Adrian Eröd, Juliana Zara
Orchestra: Munich Radio Orchestr
Conductor: Patrick Hahn
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BR Klassik
Catalogue: 900339
Release: 2022
Size: 579 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Der Kaiser von Atlantis, Op. 49b “Die Tod-Verweigerung” (Live at Prinzregenten Theater, Munich 10/10/2021)
01. Hallo, hallo!
Scene 1 “Die Tod-Verweigerung”
02. Präludium
03. Der Mond geht auf den Firsten
04. Lass sein. Was singst du da?
05. Tage, Tage, wer kauft Tage?
06. Ich fuehle mich wenig wohl in meiner Haut
07. Und was ist das?
08. Es lächert mich, wenn ich dir zuhöre
09. Das waren Kriege
10. Hallo, hallo! Achtung, Achtung!
Scene 2 “Die Tod-Verweigerung”
11. Prosa
12. Totentanz I
13. Wie spät ist es?
14. Wir, Overall, der Einzige
15. Totentanz II
Scene 3 “Die Tod-Verweigerung”
16. Wer da?
17. Ist’s wahr, dass es Landschaften gibt
18. Komm fort von hier
19. Schau, die Wolken sind vergangen
20. Die lebenden Toten
Scene 4 “Die Tod-Verweigerung”
21. Prosa
22. Hallo, hallo, der oberste General
23. Wir sind um einen Kreuzer Süßes zum Kaufmann getrabt
24. Hallo, Außenamt!
25. Fünf, sechs, sieben, acht – Nicht dran denken
26. Ich bin der Tod
27. Der Krieg ist aus
28. Komm Tod, du unser werter Gast
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 release. 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.