THE EMPEROR OF
ATLANTIS
Saaristo-ooppera
performed last autumn in Turku Victor Ullmann’s opera The Emperor of Atlantis. Unfortunately
I could not then see it, but fortunately they now showed the same opera at Oulu
music festival. For some reason people in Oulu didn’t seem to be very
interested in the opera, since there were only a few people in the audience,
which was a pity. I hope the second performance on the 24th of March
will attract more people.
The history of the
opera is rather unusual. Victor Ullmann and the librettist Peter Kien made the
opera in Theresienstadt concentration camp, where the opera was never performed
since it was considered to be a satire about Hitler. It was first performed in
Amsterdam in 1975. Both Ullmann and Kien died at Auschwitz, so they never saw
their own opera.
The opera tells about
an emperor, who forces the whole to fight in a war and wants to decide who dies.
But Death himself gets angry about that and denies dying from everybody.
Finally the emperor gives in and agrees to die first so that people will start
dying again.
From musical point of
view the opera was rather distinctive. There were lots of different types of
music starting from schlager type of music.Oulu Sinfonia and the conductor
Jaakko Kuusisto performed really well and gave the music colour and momentum.
The singers had a challenging job to be heard over the orchestra; frankly
speaking I am not sure how well Madetoja Hall suits this type of opera
acoustically. My personal favourite among the singers was Jussi Merikanto in
the role of Death. His voice rang well and he whole being suited the role
beautifully.
Costumes and setting
were rather simple and timeless. Background videos brought some historical
context to the performance and lights were used really nicely to create moods.
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| Madentoja Hall |
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| The stage |
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| The performers |
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