Thorsten Grümbel

In the grips of the Hundred Years War against England, the French find themselves in a difficult situation: Paris has fallen, Orléans is besieged, and their king, Charles VII, appears more interested in his affairs of the heart than those of the state. In this hopeless situation, the farmer's daughter Joan announces that God has commissioned her to liberate Orléans. The ‘Maid of Orléans’ may be victorious in battle but loses her heart in passion to a Burgundian knight, Lionel. The flames consume a woman torn between love and her divine mission.

The Emperor of Atlantis declares a war of all against all and proclaims that his old ally Death will spearhead the campaign. Offended by the Emperor’s insolence, Death refuses to let anyone die, wreaking havoc throughout the world. Der Kaiser von Atlantis's origin as the only surviving opera composed in a Nazi concentration camp elevates it to a unique memorial against forgetting. Yet in the Deutsche Oper am Rhein’s production, the parable of living death is never cautionary, but ominous, disturbingly comical and deeply human.