Opera production 2025

Light design, Assistant Director: Julian Pixel Schmiederer

Director: David Bösch

Conductor: Dennis Russell Davies

co-production: Ars Electronica, Brno Filharmonie, Landestheater Linz, Moravian Autumn Festival,  University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

The chamber opera „Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder Die Tod-Verweigerung“ (The Emperor of Atlantis or Death’s Refusal), took center stage at the Ars Electronica Big Concert Night 2025, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. This production combined orchestral music with scenic visualization and light design.

The opera was created in 1943/44 by Viktor Ullmann and Peter Kien in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, which the Nazis euphemistically referred to as a “ghetto”. In 1944 both artists were deported to Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and murdered there. Despite the hardships and horrors in the camp and the constant threat of deportation to an extermination camp, the composition of „Der Kaiser von Atlantis“ is a striking example of resistance and creative will.