Peter Lundin asks:

>Haveth any of You any more or less wellgrounded oppinion(s) on Victor
>Ullmanns Terezienstadt opera "Der Kaiser von Atlantis" - it is to be given
>by Opera students localy..  Thus has cought my eye - There is/was a CD on
>Decca, any thoughts on that?

I, for one, feel that it is an extremely important modern work that has
gone virtually unnoticed.  There are but three recordings available.  The
one I own is the Decca Recording from the Entartete Musik Series, and I
find it very good.  It is with the Liepzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted
by Lothar Zagrosek (this is all I know of him...he seems good enough), with
Michael Krauss as Lord Overall.  I find it to be in a very strange piece,
with quite a bit of spoken text and, if I remember correctly, the character
with the largest part is the Loudspeaker (which is mostly a spoken part and
it really sounds like a loudspeaker...static and all).  With the brutal
nature of the text, it becomes fairly clear why Ullmann was taken from his
post as Music Critic at Terezienstadt and sent away (I believe this
happened almost immediately upon its completion).

I think that I enjoy his 3rd String Quartet a little more (which is
possibly due to the fact that I saw it performed), and as an opera, I think
it is lacking something.  Be that as it may, as a subversive work and a
piece of modern historical significance, I think it is top notch.

Daryl Loomis
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