Cincinnati Chamber Opera presents two works performed in Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp outside of Prague where Jewish artists, composers, musicians and writers were interred until they were shipped to death camps. Brundibár, a children’s opera by Hans Krása and Adolf Hoffmeister, tells the story of two children whose quest to get medicine for their mother is threatened by the bully Brundibar. The Kaiser of Atlantis was actually written in Theresienstadt by composer Viktor Ullmann and librettist Peter Kien, whose surreal tale of a power hungry monarch who offends Death leaves little doubt about the Kaiser’s identity. None of the creators survived. These operas are powerful works, even without their painful resonance. CCM alum Omer Ben-Seadia returns to direct; Yael Front conducts.
