Mark Kagan is a tenor soloist who has performed throughout the United States and Europe with a number of Boston-based musical groups.

1.      Had you known of the music of Terezin before performing in the Der Kaiser von Atlantis? What led you to audition? What role did you play? How did the company go about doing background research?

I was aware of Ullmann and the music from Terezin primarly through the work of the Boston-based Hawthorne String Quartet. They have presented programs of this music many times throughout the country. One performance was at the synagogue where I am music director, Temple Sinai, Brookline MA. I was invited by the conductor, Steven Lipsitt to perform in the opera. I took the role of the der Soldat (the Soldier). Both Steven and stage director Herschel Garfein did background work on the piece. However we performed it as a "living" work, and not necessarily in the context of its genesis as a work from Terezin. It is a work that I believe can stand on its own and speak to a contemporary audience with, or without, any reference to Terezin.

2. What were the audience reactions during and after the performances? What sort of comments and reviews did you hear afterwards?

The audiences were very moved and most appreciative of the performances. One performance was in conjunction with a large symposium at Northeastern University on the music of Terezin. Another performance was in Merkin Hall in New York.

We revived the work to perform in a synagogue in Lexington, MA. It is a powerful piece, not easily understood in one listening. Ullmann was a very serious, rigorous composer, who had studied theory and composition with Schoenberg. He also studied microtonal composition at the Prague Conservatory. While the opera is often compared (favorably) to the work of Brecht and Weill in Germany, it is, in my opinion, more biting and satirical... more bleak than the Brecht/Weill pieces. No doubt the harsh realities of Terezin fed into this. Amazing that the prisoners could maintain such a high artistic standard in the face of such evil.

3. Has performing in the opera changed anything in your life? What has the experience meant to you personally, as both a performer and a "regular person"?

It is hard to say what, if any, effect the performances have had on me. As I sit here and write I am reminded of the experience of putting the work together...trying to understand it ourselves without being overwhelmed by the realities of its genesis. As performers I think we have an obligation to present the work of the composer in as faithful a manner as possible, not becoming too personally involved in the circumstances around the composition (beyond that which may lend to a "truer" performance). Der Kaiser von Atlantis is a work, like so many compositions from Terezin, that deserves to be performed as a piece that can speak to us now.

Terezin, Auschwitz, Birchenau…they all speak to me on a quite regular basis, you see. As a Jew, as a citizen of the world, the facts of the twentieth century are seldom far from my conscience. I recently heard a remark that artists are the "keepers of conscience." I think we must all have a conscience, but certainly works like Der Kaiser can only help us along.