The Emperor of Atlantis / The Lighthouse, ETO - Seven magazine review Had it been written in other circumstances, the score - with its echoes of Hindemith and Weill, but harking right back to Bach - might justifiably be described as a little dry, but played with the potency and punch it receives here from the Aurora Orchestra under Peter Selwyn it stands as a moving last testament of the Austro-Czech composer, a Schoenberg pupil who was soon to be murdered at Auschwitz. The German Expressionist cabaret tone is perfectly captured in James Conway's production, which appropriately and seamlessly integrates Bach's cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden ("Christ lay in death's bonds," loosely translated here via Brechtian placards) by way of a curtain-raiser, performed on a little stage as if in Theresienstadt itself. Neil Irish's designs evoke the time and place, with a backwards nod in the form of the Emperor's Prussian helmet. As the Emperor, Richard Mosley-Evans stands out in a well-balanced cast of seven singers. His baritone also makes a strong impact as the old sea-dog Arthur in The Lighthouse, where along with Adam Tunnicliffe (Sandy) and Nicholas Merryweather (Blazes) he plays one of the three Hebridean lighthouse keepers who disappeared around Christmas 1900. In Maxwell Davies's detective mystery crossed with a ghost story, they also play the naval officers who come to investigate, and Ted Huffman's production is cleverly served by Neil Irish's half-cylinder set. Strongly suggestive of an untamed sea, Maxwell Davies's challenging score (superbly played under Richard Baker) adds psychological penetration through its use of parody. Both this and Ullmann's work underline the fact that opera is much more than a tenor's top notes pinging off decorative settings, and ETO should win new converts to the art form with this tour. 'The Emperor of Atlantis' tours to Nov 17; 'The Lighthouse' tours to Nov 9