Viktor Ullmann The Emperor of Atlantis

SPIEL IN EINEM AKT VON VIKTOR ULLMANN; LIBRETTO VON PETER KIEN Eine Produktion in Zusammenarbeit mit LUCERNE FESTIVAL und der Schiffahrtsgesellschaft Vierwaldstattersee

Lucerne Festival 16 September 2004

Der Kaiser Urban Malmberg

Der Tod Martin SneII

Harlekin & Soldat Martin Nyvall

Der Trommler Tanja Ariane Baumgartner

Madchen Simone Stock

Lautsprecher Boris Petronje

Musikalische Leitung John Axelrod

Inszenierung Dominique Mentha

Buhnenbild Werner Hutterli

Kostume Susanne Hubrich Licht Gerard CIeven

Lucerne Theatre opened its season with a brilliantly staged and thought provoking production of The Emperor of Atlantis. The venue chosen was a temporarily converted floating dock in the industrial part of the lakeside, which you pass when walking to Wagner's villa Triebschen, now a fascinating museum and not to be missed.

The new theatre director, Dominique Mentha, in collaboration with the new music director, John Axelrod , have not shied away from an uncomfortable tale (see also our review of their production of Stallerhof). In some ways they have managed to upstage the more traditional offerings of the Music Festival with an emotionally intense and intellectually, as well as visually, reverberating work which deals with a dark episode of European History.

The Emperor of Atlantis was composed and rehearsed in Theresienstadt, the 'cultural' concentration camp under Nazi rule. The work never reached performance stage there. Ironically, only the singer of the part of Death survived the camps. The manuscript, however, was preserved having been handed to a friend of Ullman's before his deportation to Auschwitz . It found its way to England but was first produced in Amsterdam in 1975.

The Emperor of Atlantis is at one and the same time everywhere, nowhere specific, as well as a reference to Nazi politics and atrocities. It transcends the historical elements bound up with Nazi persecution and ideas of world domination, and reaches beyond towards universal predicaments and truths. 'Overall', the Emperor, could be any unbalanced, power-hungry and destructive dictator; anywhere, anytime.

The story is deceptively simple, harking back to old popular 'Everyman' themes with an emperor, his side-kick, a drummer (dressed stunningly as an eroticized, seductive drum majorette), a soldier, a girl, Harlequin and Death taking the stage. 'Overall', the emperor, declares a universal war and a total kill is proclaimed by the drummer. Death, bereft of his/her power to choose to end life, goes on strike. No one dies any more. Public order breaks down and can eventually only be restored through the consensual death of 'Overall'.

The work is full of sharp, sour and poignant humour, ideas of resistance, hopes and also love. It was a response to an abnormal situation. Surrounded by mass-murder on a vast and daily scale, the mythologizing of human predicaments, through flights of the imagination and a tapping of inner reserves of resistance in the face of real powerlessness, is awe inspiring. Where death is a constant presence, to imagine that death is impossible is flying in the face of reality, and to conjure up the idea that the Emperor could be eliminated through willing death is a crazy hope against hope for a reversal of fortunes.

The staging by Werner Hutterli is brilliantly simple and appropriate. The almost make-shift appearance of rough wood shavings piled into mounds is set on a covered platform surrounded by open water. At times only a curtain divides the stage from the lake, with illuminated boats gliding silently across in the background to add a surreal note to the setting.

The venue itself could not have been bettered. Music theatre on a lakeside setting has become a popular attraction. This Lucerne Theatre staging was different though. One had to wend ones way across precarious walkways onto an industrial workshop site. This heightened the atmosphere of being turfed into an unusual and slightly precarious place (though guarded all the way by staff so as not to go over the edge in the semi-darkness).

Excellently acted and sung and played at its final performance under John Axelrod's sharp musical direction, the presentation did not shy away from the uncomfortable implications of this fable. A vivid production which will stay long in the minds of those fortunate enough to be present.

Alexa Woolf

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