Time:
7:30 - 9:30pm
Location:
O'Malley Theatre | Auditorium Building, room 773
Event type:
About this event
The Tsar Has His Photograph Taken//Der Kaiser von Atlantis
- Composers: Kurt Weill//Viktor Ullmann
- Director: Claire DiVizio
- Pianist: Jennifer Allor
CCPA Undergraduate Opera is excited to present these works by two German-speaking Jewish composers as a single evening-long arc, with one intermission. Weill's work, written in Berlin in 1927, portrays a comical tyrant who unwittingly unravels a plot for his own assassination. Ullmann's opera, written in 1944 inside the Theresienstadt concentration camp, shows an exhausted country, led by a Kaiser obsessed with proving his nation's superiority through war. When a frustrated Death refuses to reap anymore souls, the Kaiser deems it a blessing, and sends his forces into battle for all eternity, without thought of the consequences. In this double bill, the Tsar of the first work and the Kaiser of the second are suggested to be the same man, who has lived through the nearly 20 years that separate the real-life creation of these works and become corrupted by time and power. The conclusion of DER KAISER is a reminder that the assurance of death is what gives meaning to life, for both good and ill. CONTENT WARNINGS: this production will involve staged firearm use and the sound of gunfire, as well as many references to death, war, and violence.
THE TSAR will be presented in English; DER KAISER will be sung in German with English dialogue. Both works will have projected supertitles in English.
Free performances on Fri, Dec 1 and Sat, Dec 2. Non-Roosevelt guests may be asked to show photo ID to enter campus buildings.
Please consider making a tax-deductible gift online to support CCPA's programs (designate "Chicago College of Performing Arts" in the comments box of your online donation).