First impressions of the rehearsals for the premiere of KaiserRequiem
An emperor proclaims a war of all against all. But he has not reckoned with death. When the latter refuses to serve, the tyrant's power is broken.
In KaiserRequiem, conductor Omer Meir Wellber and director and choreographer Andreas Heise combine Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem in D minor KV 626 with Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis: a requiem mass with music of superhuman beauty, transcendence, but also drama and an opera that was composed in 1943/44 amidst the horror of the Second World War in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt.
Photographer Ashley Taylor provides the first insights into the work on this musical theatre that gets under your skin, uniting soloists, choir and orchestra of the Volksoper Wien with the dancers of the Vienna State Ballet.
Premiere on 25 January 2025
