Opera Review: The World Has Gone Mad

A modern double bill opens Juilliard Opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"HALLO-HALLO!" The Drummer (Amanda Lynn Bottoms, right)
announces the Emperor's intentions in a scene from Der Kaiser von Atlantis.
Photo by Nan Merriman © 2015 The Juilliard School.

As I write this, our world as we know it is under siege. In Paris, religious fanatics fire machine-guns into crowds, punishing people for daring to go out-of-doors. Here in America, capitalist fanatics engage in racist rhetoric in  an attempt to become the leader of the free world. It is apt, then that the Juilliard Opera chose to open its 2015 season with a double-barreled blast of cynicism: Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias and Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis.