The libretto for the one-act chamber opera The Emperor of Atlantis was written by Peter Kien while he was imprisoned at the Terezín concentration camp. Between his 1941 deportation and his final transfer to Auschwitz in October 1944, he produced a vast body of drawings, plays, and poetry that document the conditions of his confinement.
Formative Years in Czechoslovakia
Born on 1 January 1919 in Varnsdorf, Kien lived in the industrial town near the Czech-German border for his first decade. Following a financial crisis, his family relocated to Brno. In 1936, he graduated from a German high school with notable commendations for drawing and writing. That same year, he began his formal training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Prof. Willy Novak, while simultaneously attending the Officina Pragensis graphic design school led by Prof. Hugo Steiner-Prag.
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After the 1939 enforcement of the Nuremberg Laws, Kien was dismissed from the Academy but continued his work at the Officina Pragensis under Prof. Jaroslav Švab and taught at the Vinohrady Synagogue. Following his 1940 marriage to Ilse Stránská, he unsuccessfully attempted to emigrate. In December 1941, he was deported to Terezín. As director of the Technical Drawing Office of the Jewish Self Administration, he used stolen paper to produce hundreds of sketches documenting the camp's reality, starkly contradicting Nazi claims of a model settlement.
Literary and Theatrical Works
In the ghetto, Kien authored several plays, including the socially satirical Marionettes, which received 25 performances under director Gustav Schorsch. His other dramatic works, such as Medea, Bad Dream, and On the Border, remained unperformed during his lifetime. Additionally, he wrote the libretto for Viktor Ullmann's opera The Emperor of Atlantis, composed between 1943 and 1944. Gideon Klein also set Kien's poetic cycle Plague to music. These manuscripts were later preserved in the Wiener Holocaust Library in London.
Death and Archival Legacy
On 16 October 1944, Kien was transported to Auschwitz alongside his parents and his wife. He died from disease shortly after arriving at the camp; none of his family members survived the war. Today, 681 of his drawings and various literary manuscripts are held in the archives of the Wiener Holocaust Library. His opera libretto reached a wider audience posthumously, with its first performance occurring in 1975 in Amsterdam, followed by a 1990 Decca recording and a 2012 production at the Royal Opera House in London.
Fast facts
- Born: 1 January 1919, Varnsdorf, Czechoslovakia
- Died: October 1944, Auschwitz
- Education: Academy of Fine Arts, Prague
- Major Work: The Emperor of Atlantis (Libretto)
- Occupations: Writer, painter, librettist, playwright
- Archival Collection: Wiener Holocaust Library, London
- Spouse: Ilse Stránská
Questions readers ask
Where is the original libretto for The Emperor of Atlantis kept?
The original document is held by the Wiener Holocaust Library in London.
What subjects did Kien focus on in his Terezín drawings?
He focused on portraits, landscapes, and genre sketches that captured the inhuman living conditions of the concentration camp.
