The magnum opus, after Franz Kafka, of Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (1919–1994), a composer of Polish-Israeli descent whose personal history is said to have bristled with Kafkaesque parallels. His Amerika premiered in Berlin in 1969 and has seen only two previous revivals in the meantime. Per the Opernhaus Web site, the score combines compositional precision with great freedom of form to generate “breathtaking mobiles of sound, image, action and light, with the auditorium likewise integrated into the performance through the use of sound projections.” Thus it takes its place with such other tours de force as Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, Wolfgang Rihm’s Hamletmaschine, Heinz Holliger’s Lunea, and Helmut Lachenmann’s Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern. Those who have drunk the Kool-Aid with respect to these other titles will either be girding up for another season of Survivor or running for the hills. —Matthew Gurewitsch