The Emperor of Atlantis by Ullmann, Wed 21 Aug 2024, From (2024/2024), Directed by Peeter Jalakas, Conductor Kaspar Mänd, Von Krahl teater, Tallinn, Estonia

Estonian National Opera and Von Krahl Theatre begin the season with an exciting co-project, Viktor Ullmann’s one-act opera “The Emperor of Atlantis” (Der Kaiser von Atlantis”) that has never been performed in Estonia before. Ullmann wrote the opera in the Theresienstadt concentration camp together with his fellow prisoner librettist Peter Kien in 1943–1944. “The Emperor of Atlantis or The Disobedience of Death” focuses on the dictatorial aspirations of the Emperor of mythical Atlantis in overtaking the role of Death in universal war, where everyone must fight until there is no one left alive. Death protests on the Emperor’s usurpation of his profession and goes on strike until the Emperor agrees to compromise – he must be the first to show how to die for a noble cause. The opera is a satirical jab at Hitler’s vision of the Third Reich and its driving ideology that does not value human life.