ACFNY SUPPORTED | ELYSIUM: VIKTOR ULLMANN’S CORNET
Cornet: Viktor Ullmann’s Legacy from Theresienstadt
In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Ullmann’s murder in Auschwitz
This evening is dedicated to the late Marta Eggerth, long-time Honorary Artistic Director of “Elysium – between two continents”, and a long-time friend of the Austrian Cultural Forum.
The Austrian Cultural Forum is pleased to host this evening with Elysium – between two continents.
The Austrian-Jewish composer Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944) was one of many artists who was deported to the ghetto and concentration camp Theresienstadt north of Prague. Faced with degrading living conditions, hunger and pain, and fear in the face of terror and death, Ullmann did not surrender. Even under those horrible circumstances he remained defiant. His music helped him to endure the daily suffering. His art also comforted and encouraged the other inmates.
The Cornet is the last composition that Ullmann was able to finish in Terezin, before he was deported to Auschwitz on October 16, 1944, where he and his wife Elisabeth were killed two days later. His music was rescued by a friend who survived the camps. The Lay of Love and Death of the Cornet Christoph Rilke is based on a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke tells the haunting story of a young soldier who experiences love and death in one night. Ullmann’s composition is a rare combination of recitation and piano. The music underlines the dramatic action, comments on it, illustrates it and thus intensifies the effect.
The adamant will to live, the unshakable hope, that the good will prevail, no matter how horrible the attempts are to crush it, this is the message of Ullmann’s music from Terezin
With
Michael Lahr (Introduction),
Gregorij H. von Leïtis (Recitation),
and Dan Franklin Smith (Piano)
ABOUT ELYSIUM
Since its founding in New York City in 1983, Elysium has established itself as a vital force at the intersection of American and European cultures and has presented more than 400 events (theater/opera productions, concerts, readings, exhibitions and lectures) in more than 80 cities worldwide. Fostering artistic and creative dialogue and mutual friendship between the United States of America and Europe, and fighting against discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism by means of art are at the heart of Elysium’s mission.
Elysium’s special concern has been to unearth and present works of artists exiled and persecuted by the fascist regimes of the mid twentieth century. Among those artists are composers such as Viktor Ullmann, whose opera The Emperor of Atlantis, composed in the ghetto and concentration camp Theresienstadt, was staged by Elysium in New York, or Ernst Krenek, whose opera What Price Confidence Elysium premiered both in New York and in Italy. The many concerts and musical-literary collages, presenting works of mostly forgotten artists whose works Elysium had found in archives and libraries in the US and Europe, had a trailblazing effect. Other organizations and individuals followed in Elysium’s footsteps.
> More information: elysiumbtc.org
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ACFNY