Inventive production polishes up a lost 20th century operatic gem.

Richard Symons, a soldier with Corinne Cowing

Lost and Found Opera is a unique organisation for Perth: An opera company that has dedicated itself to performing lost and underperformed works in found locations around the city. They are an indication of Perth’s growing maturity, where the arts-going populace has started to reward interesting deviations from the norm.

Their production of Poulenc’s The Human Voice earlier this year at the Perth Fringe Festival was critically acclaimed: a work for a single vocalist and accompanist, the performance took place in a hotel room to an audience of 15 people. The Emperor of Atlantis is their latest production and while it is significantly larger in scale, it retains the immediacy and veracity that has become a signature of their work.

The Emperor of Atlantis is “a kind of opera in four acts”. It is the story of the Emperor (played by Michael Heap) who declares an all-encompassing war between every man, woman and child, until there are no survivors. Death, personified by Daniel Sumegi, tired by the mechanical operation that war has descended into, is offended by the Emperors...