Search - Chor der Oper Bielefeld :: Fall of Antichrist (Der Sturz des Antichrist)

A fascinating discovery

Jordi Vives | Workington, Cumbria, UK | 03/22/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I purchased this opera CD set after some familiarisation with Viktor Ullmann's music, by way of his Terezin opera The Emperor of Atlantis, the symphonies, the Third Quartet and some piano sonatas. Listening to a new piece by Ullmann always brings the desire to discover the next. My interest on the music of this unjustly neglected composer keeps increasing without showing any signs of dwindling.



The major positives of this fascinating opera are, in my opinion, three. In the first place, there is the sumptuous and extremely refined orchestration. From beginning to end there is not a single dull passage. The music has the capacity to envelop the listener with its rarefied and seducing sound world. It is to be celebrated that this piece survived, unlike most of Ullmann's works, because in it you are to finds magnificent sounds, sometimes entering into the realm of the sublime, not least because of the way this highly cultivated composer treats the individual instruments with an unfailing sense of colour.



Secondly, from the compositional viewpoint, this is music of great interest. Ullmann has a unique style, very much his own. His melodic writing is a case in point. After hearing one note, Ullmann will tend to leap to the unexpected, using wide intervals and always surprising you, so that the effect in many instances is that of a stratospheric climb to a rarefied environment, often with a touch of sadness or melancholy. It never ceases to surprise me how Ullmann finds the next note, and the next one, and the one after next. It makes you want to keep listening.



I would say that style-wise this music looks at late Mahler, Zemlinsky and the early 2nd Vienna School (e.g. Berg). Somehow, it bridges the gap between tonality and atonality. One can't help constantly regretting that this avant-garde of Czech-Jewish composers was mercilessly destroyed in the Nazi death camps, and the music forbidden and prosecuted, thus depriving our generation of having these works accessible as part of the "normal repertoire". If you think that you have explored all the masterpieces of the 20th century and don't know Ullmann, you are in for a big surprise and no small amount of reassessment.



Lastly, there is the story itself. In this opera Ullmann lays down open for us all his entire philosophical view of the world. If you, like I, are not familiar with Ullmann's views (Antrophosophy) you might miss some of the messages in the opera, but you will still be dazzled by the ineffable mysticism of the music, which Ullmann brings to you in with an open heart. This is as much THE Antroposophist opera as much as Mozart's Magic Flute is THE Masonic opera per excellence, but neither the former nor the latter are exclusively for Antroposophists or Freemasons, respectively: both are universal. This is because there are other strong themes that are inescapably eternal: the troubled relationship between art, science and religion, causes for the rise and fall of tyranny, and the problem of creativity under oppression, very much current and present issues of relevance.



The only drawback of this music is that you might be disappointed if you expect the traditional love story format. In this mystic music drama, which flows continuously from beginning to end like a tapestry through its three well-proportioned acts, all the characters are male (4 tenors, baritone and bass) and there are no choruses. This is fine, but as a drama for the stage it is not something that will excite great romantic passions: the forces that drive this opera appeal to the spirit and the intellect, which of course is not a drawback. You just must know what to expect.



I conclude this review by unreservedly recommending this opera (and the present performance is truly excellent by the way) as a great way to become introduced to Ullmann; listeners that have opened their hearts and minds to this hidden masterpiece may then wish to progress to the much shorter chamber opera "The Emperor of Atlantis", written in the Terezin concentration camp. Knowing both works leads to fascinating analogies and comparisons."

Brilliant, compelling opera marred by missionary zeal...

Eric D. Anderson | South Bend, IN United States | 01/04/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Consider the case of Viktor Ullmann. A German/Czech of Jewish heritage, he was born in 1898 and completed three operas. None of these were ever given a professional production during Ullmann's lifetime. "Antichrist" was given but one performance by a philosophical society, despite the fact that it had won Universal Edition's "Emil Hertzka Prize", judged by such usical luminaries as Alexander Zemlinsky, Ernst Krenek, Egon ellesz, and Karl Rankl. He approached the New German Theater in Prague, where he had spent years as chorus master and repetiteur. But the company apparently feared that the Antichrist of Ullmann's opera might be seen to be too easily applicable to a certain German political leader, and didn't want trouble.



During a trip to London in 1938, Ullmann attempted to emmigrate, but was refused. In 1942, just after finishing the score of "Zerbrochene Krug", he was taken into custody by the Nazis and sent to Theresienstadt, they're "model camp", where he composed furiously, including his final opera--the now famous "Emperor of Atlantis", scored for 13 instruments, including banjo. Rehearsal were underway in the camp, when officials realized that the Emperor in this opera was a mocking portrait of Hitler.



He died in the gas chambers of Auchwitz on October 18, 1944. Today all three operas are available on CD.



Ullmann had studied two years with Arnold Schoenberg, and his earlier work is dodecaphonic. Yet he came to the conclusion that this was not the way forward. At the end of the 20s, Ullmann became a fervent believer in Anthoposophy, an esoteric spiritual/religious philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner. He then decided to return to tonality.



"The Fall of the Antichrist" is a production of both his new compositional style, and of his dedication to Anthroposophy. The music is very similar to that of Zemlinsky. "Antichrist" sounds more like Zemlinsky than any opera I've heard that isn't Zemlinsky's own. Ullmann's music shares with that of the elder composer an intense relationship to the text. It expresses every phrase with beauty, clarity and lyricism. It is beautifully, sensationally scored from beginning to end.



One other opera came to mind while listening to "Antichrist"--Korngold's "Das Wunder der Heliane", with which it shares similar themes. Both feature a messiahic hero and an evil ruler, who wants to eradicate goodness from the world. Yet while Korngold's story is more concerned with aesthsetics, romance, and a kind of holy eroticism, Ullmann's is eager to share the philosophy of Anthroposophy--perhaps too much so. If the opera has a weakness, it is in it's missionary zeal to put forth Steiner's teachings. Yet it is so persuasively scored, that I wanted to believe the whole way, even when reason might suggest "no"! Ironically, Steiner was antisemetic.



The story concerns an imprisoned scientist, priest, and artist. A demonic Regent demands that the scientist fly to space and sever the earth's connection to the sun, that the priest should abandon the Eurcharist, and instead bless stone meal with which the Regent intends to feed the world, and he demands that the artist should create a new language to praise the Regents works. Only the artist resists. But the prison Warden turns out to be a great sage, and he teaches the artist to overcome fear and death. In the end both the scientist and the priest learn in the course of their tasks the evil of the Regent and the lordship of Christ. Together with the Artist, they proclaim the Regent the Antichrist, and the Regent is destroyed when the space ship bearing him away from the scene explodes.





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