The Kaiser of Atlantis

*The Kaiser of Atlantis*, an opera in four acts, presents a powerful allegory of the madness and death wrought by the Führer’s regime during the Third Reich. Viktor Ullmann and Peter Kien conceived, wrote and prepared the work in a concentration camp. Under the guise of fiction, the opera concealed a scathing satire of Hitler and, at the same time, became a form of resistance against totalitarianism.

However, its creators never lived to see it premiered. Both were murdered just two weeks after the first dress rehearsal. The manuscript managed to survive almost miraculously thanks to an extraordinary chain of events and to Kerry Woodward, who finally premiered the work in 1975. Despite this, for decades both the opera and the story of its creators remained virtually forgotten.

Forty years later, to mark the largest production of The Kaiser of Atlantis staged to date, at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Kerry Woodward sets out to recover that silenced story and reveal everything that lies behind the work.