"The Tsar Gets his Photograph Taken" by Kurt Weill, with a libretto by Georg Kaiser, is set in 1928, the world of Weimar Germany. It was an energetic time for the arts, including experiments in composition like the Zeitoper, which may be translated as “an opera of the time, a form that usually dealt with social and political issues.” The music was accessible with allusions to popular music, particularly jazz, it used technology as a plot device, and it resembled opera buffo with its comic and satiric plots. Weill's one act fits that description.
The Tsar comes to a photography studio to get his picture taken, unknowingly walking into an assassination plot. But when one of assassins realizes that he is just a nice, lonely young man looking for a girl friend, the whole plot falls apart.
Barry McDaniel Carla Pohl and Marita Napier head the cast, with the Cologne Radio Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Jan-Latham Konig.
