Click on the picture on the left 
for a preliminary itinerary

 Get the full itinerary and costs, 
and make a reservation:
gmf@faf.org

The 2009 Greenwich Music Festival features music written by prisoners in the Terezin concentration camp during the Second World War. Friendship Ambassadors Foundation will help make the art come alive with an historical, culture tour to Prague for a visit to the camp’s museum, Prague’s Jewish Quarter, and including an optional extension on to the lively Budapest Jewish Arts Festival, home to Europe’s largest working synagogue.

Composers Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas and Hans Krasa, whose works will be performed throughout the week, were all active members of the vibrant Terezin musical community. All four were sent to Auschwitz on October 16, 1944; they died in the camp. They left, though, a rich legacy of opera, chamber music, choral music and much more. Join us for an amazing week of performances featuring rising young artists from around the world.

A portion of all tour costs benefits the Greenwich Music Festival and is fully tax deductible to all participants or their families. Friendship Ambassadors Foundation (FAF) is hosting the tour as a service to the Festival. FAF is a 501 c 3 tax exempt not for profit organization, resident since 2006 at the Greenwich Arts Council building. The foundation does not charge any fees whatsoever to the organizations it serves.

For more information: EMAIL: GMF@FAF.ORG

Please provide us with the following information: 
Name, Address, Email, Phone, and when would be a good time to contact you.
Let us know in the email if you are interested in: 
• Prague and Budapest, or 
• Prague, alone.
Also, how many in your party and if you plan to request any upgrades, single rooms, extensions, or deviations from the end of the group itinerary. These will affect your final per person travel cost.

This tour is based on a minimum of 25 travelers, departs and return from New York and inclusions are listed on the preliminary itinerary.

More about Der Kaiser Von Atlantis Performed by the Greenwich Music Festival 
June 2009 Greenwich, CT

Viktor Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantis is an opera unlike any other. Ullmann and librettist Petr Kien composed it while living in the Nazi camp Terezín; performances were halted and the show banned when SS guards watched a rehearsal and realized the opera was a thinly veiled allegory for Hitler’s war against the Jews.

Combining the influences of Brecht, Bach, Weill, Strauss, Schoenberg and many others, Ullmann and Kien created a taut theatrical experience that produces both a searing political critique of a ruined world and a stunning message of hope for the Terezín audience.

Our new production features the International Contemporary Ensemble and young stars from the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Australia and La Scala with music and stage direction from GMF co-founders Robert Ainsley and Ted Huffman.

History

In the summer of 1943, Viktor Ullmann and Petr Kien began collaborating on what was to later emerge as a signature masterpiece of Terezin’s musical scene. Their unique one-act opera, subtitled Death Abdicates, dared to satirize the political situation of World War II while delivering timeless messages of the power of life and death.

Written in four scenes, the opera required seven singers – 1 baritone, 2 basses, 2 tenors, 1 soprano, and 1 alto/mezzo-soprano – as well as a thirteen-piece chamber orchestra – flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet, banjo, harmonium, percussion, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.

A talented young artist and poet, Kien penned the libretto while veteran composer Ulmann scored the music. Together their efforts spawned a remarkable work that today provides a poignant glimpse into the lives of the suffering masses.

Kien and Ullmann revised the opera a number of times over the ensuing year. From the edited appearance of surviving manuscripts, it seems some aspects of the political allegory were too hot for the Freizeitgestaltung to handle. After adequate libretto adjustments were made to appease the Jewish cultural heads, the rehearsal process began in earnest with Rafael Schacter as conductor and Karl Meinhard as director.

During a final rehearsal in September of 1944, SS officers happened by the scene and were outraged at what they heard. Any further continuance of the opera’s performance was swiftly halted as Der Kaiser von Atlantis was immediately banned. Furthermore, the entire cast, orchestra, Ullmann, Kien, and their families were promptly shipped in a transport to Auschwitz. Only the composition and the singers survived.

History courtesy of Melissa Misicka

For further information on the performances in Greenwich, visit: http://www.greenwichmusicfestival.org/