Stockhausen - Dienstag aus Licht (Paris, 2020)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Dienstag aus Licht

Le Balcon - Paris, 2020

Maxime Pascal, Richard Wilberforce, Damien Bigourdan, Nieto, Élise Chauvin, Léa Trommenschlager, Hubert Mayer, Damien Pass, Henri Deléger, Mathieu Adam, Sarah Kim

Philharmonie Live streaming, 24th October 2020

There is of course never anything conventional about Stockhausen's approach to music and, from what we've been able to see so far of this new cycle of his epic 7-day, almost 30 hour-long opera series Licht, undertaken over the last few years by Le Balcon (Donnerstag aus Licht, Samstag aus Licht), each section is not short of ideas and challenges. It goes without saying that this an ambitious work of opera like no other and the challenges are undoubtedly for an opera company to rise to the scale of Stockhausen's vision, the challenges of the singing and music and the often near-impossible stage directions. Performed in Paris in October 2020, the unique challenges of presenting Dienstag aus Licht ('Tuesday from Light'), were doubtlessly compounded it being performed during the height of the initial waves of the Covid pandemic, but Maxime Pascal, Le Balcon, director Damien Bigourdan and visual artist Nieto still managed to do full justice to this section of Stockhausen's operatic masterwork. 

First performed in Leipzig in 1993, Dienstag aus Licht indeed opens with one of Stockhausen's unconventional techniques inevitably rarely seen in opera, the Dienstags-Gruss (Tuesday’s Greeting) requiring not just one but two conductors to handle the compositional challenges of the score. I've seen it used since in Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, but of course Stockhausen has been here before in 1957 with his piece Gruppen for three orchestras with three conductors. Here it has particular relevance and necessity as the opening of Dienstag, since like much of the themes of the entire Licht cycle as a whole, it involves the eternal battle between the opposing forces of good and evil, with Michael on one side and Lucifer on the other.

And that is how they appear on the stage of the Philharmonie de Paris during the prelude of Tuesday's Greeting, the two pitched against each other in yet another struggle for dominance, light seeking to overcome darkness. On one side Michael's trumpets and celestial chorus are bathed in blue light, sending out blasts of goodness against the red lit deeper intoning of Lucifer's trumpets rejecting God, with voices whispering fragments of words and clicks that are spat out at the other side. Maxime Pascal conducting Lucifer's forces, Richard Wilberforce conducting Michael's separately across each other, follow Stockhausen's detailed directions with precision. A figure appears in the midst of this battle, appealing for calm; Eve, the third person in the triumvirate that Licht revolves around.

In Act I Michael and Lucifer appear on the stage, Lucifer challenging Michael to run the Jahreslauf, the Course of the Year. Visually this is presented as four walking-dancing-rotating-spinning figures moving at different speeds, representing time; one for the millennium, one for the century, one for the decade, and one for the year. Lucifer uses temptations to stop time, and Michael has to start it again using 'incentives'. One of those mentioned in the stage directions is a monkey in the sports car. We didn't quite get that, but there was nonetheless an effective best endeavour for all the situations. When the runners eventually succeed in making it to the year 2020, Lucifer accepts Michael as the winner, but he has another more difficult challenge to offer in the second Act.

Again, a ritualistic aspect is evident in the work, one that has been described by Stockhausen in detail in his directions, right down to the number of tongue clicks and trills uttered by the performers. With an orchestral accompaniment that consists of drums and percussion, flutes, a guitar, a harpsichord, three harmoniums and soprano saxophones, it sometimes feel like we have entered David Lynch's Black Lodge here, some disturbing alternate reality subject to unfamilar laws. If it doesn't feel quite as combative and awe-inspiring as the situations in some of the others days, Act I is definitely unique in its own way and a fascinating part of the whole. But there is a darker side to come.

The possibilities offered by CGI allows Stockhausen's vision for the second part of the opera 'Act II - Invasion - Explosion with Farewell' to be realised more effectively than anyone could ever have imagined, bringing the battlefield out into the auditorium. Fighter planes picked out in spotlights are shot down by laser-guided weapons to crash, burn and smolder on a vast wall of rock projected on the stage. One pilot is plucked from the wreckage by an enormous 3-D hand that appears out of an opening in the cliff face. All the while a synthetic sound drone underpins the menace, the whole thing having the look and feel of the opening of a Pink Floyd concert. The explosion that subsequently takes place as Lucifer and Michael take to the stage with their army of trombones and trumpets truly lives up to the billing, threatening chaos.

The battle eventually seems to collapse under its own weight, leaving a strange absence and air of expectation. This is filled with the arrival of the Synthi-Fou, who brings the opera to a conclusion in an orgy of planes crashing in a kaleidoscopic explosion of colour and light, while he/she plays out a barrage of synthesiser sounds. An ominous choral backing that seems to present a blend of haunting doom and celestial wonder vocalises the chaos that has been left behind. You can truly say - as with every other part of Stockhausen's Licht that Le Balcon have presented thus far - that you have never seen or heard anything quite like Dienstag aus Licht. It also lives up to the ambition of Stockhausen to take opera into another realm beyond music, singing and drama, into a sensory, participatory experience.

It would be ridiculous to review or rate this opera performance in a traditional manner. Stockhausen doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation in Licht, but if you are looking for as authentic an experience of this extraordinary work - rarely performed for obvious reasons - you can be sure that Maxime Pascal and Le Balcon's production lives up to the extraordinarily challenging standards of music and theatricality that Stockhausen's expansive epic presents. Stockhausen's work invites disciples who like to see his work treated reverentially, and Le Balcon do that here by performing the work with purpose and complete commitment. As they have done with previous sections Donnerstag and Samstag, and as they will no doubt do with the remaining four.

The next section of Licht to be tackled in this complete cycle by Le Balcon is Freitag aus Licht at Lille and Paris in November 2022. Having only seen Donnerstag aus Licht performed live, I hope I get the opportunity to see that or one or two of the remaining sections, and if they manage to keep up this standard of presentation, this cycle will undoubtedly be considered be one of the operatic achievements of the decade.

Links: Le Balcon - Licht, Philharmonie Live

Stockhausen - Samstag aus Licht (Paris, 2019)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Samstag aus Licht

Le Balcon - Paris, 2019

Maxime Pascal, Damien Bigourdan, Damien Pass, Alphonse Cemin, Henri Deléger, François-Xavier Plancqueel, Mathieu Adam, Ayumi Taga

Philharmonie de Paris, 28 & 29 June 2019

Opera has evolved considerably as an artform over the last 400 years, partly due to its very nature of incorporating a wide range of disciplines, from poetry and writing to dancing and singing, dramatic theatre and spectacle, and evidently music. As each of those disciplines have developed over the centuries so too has opera incorporated this growth, and some of the greatest opera composers have been those that have embraced change and actually extended those disciplines further into new areas. At heart however what has remained important is the ability of those works to express something about humanity that relates to their own personal experience and vision and find a complete operatic expression for it.

Quite where Karlheinz Stockhausen fits into people's conception of great composers is undoubtedly a matter of taste and changing perceptions, but there can be little doubt that he pushed music into previously unimaginable zones like no-one else. In opera too he created one of the most extraordinary and original, not to mention challenging and controversial opera works ever written in the 29 hour long, 7-day opera cycle Licht, 'Light'. Evidently few have had the opportunity to see that work performed and staged in its entirety, but Maxime Pascal and Le Balcon took on that ambitious task on 2018, starting with a production of Donnerstag aus Licht, 'Thursday from Light'.

As you might expect from a radically experimental composer like Stockhausen no two works in the cycle are going to be alike and certainly Samstag takes a very different approach from the mysticism of Donnerstag with its comprehensive globe-spanning worldview of the battle between Good and Evil and, from the semi-autobiographical elements within, presumably a similar battle within Stockhausen himself. Written in 1984, the second work in the Licht cycle, Samstag serves the function of a day of transition, a liberation from one state of being to the next, the liberation of the soul from mortal restraints, which for Lucifer means the death of humanity. In one respect however Samstag aus Licht still very much adheres to the underlying philosophy that music can illuminate and save the world through its Light (Licht), specifically if you like through Stockhausen's music and his self-image as the Saviour of the Earth.

It's the predominance and importance of music and ritual as a liberating force that immediately strikes the listener and indicates the overall tone of Samstag aus Licht. Its opening fanfare of Luzifers-Gruss (Lucifer's Greeting), is followed by a long solo piano opening Luzifers-Traum (Lucifer's Dream) section. Having been resisted by Michael through the power of his music in Donnerstag, Lucifer - sung by bass Damien Pass - is of course not completely eradicated from Earth and his dreams take on form in music that soothes his wounds and fills him with strength again. Music likewise is very much a character in Samstag aus Licht as it was in Donnerstag aus Licht, and Stockhausen blurs the lines as to where one discipline ends and another begins in the expression of a character or even a theme.

The second scene in Samstag for example involves a black cat Kathinka who plays 24 pieces on the flute as a requiem for Lucifer (Kathinkas-Gesang als Luzifers-Requiem). The music is accompanied by singing into the flute in places, while six percussionists representing the six mortal senses ('thought' being the sixth sense) play 'magical' instruments. Damien Bigourdan and Maxime Pascal capture the fluid musical qualities and expression superbly for the Le Balcon production, visually representing the music and the ritualistic side of the unconventional requiem to Satan, the percussionists dispersed around the auditorium of the Philharmonie in Paris. Once the senses are liberated however, despite the requiem performed in his name, Lucifer proves to still be very much alive.

Part Three, Luzifers-Tanz (Lucifer's Dance), illustrates quite literally how different and strikingly original Stockhausen's approach to opera is in its utter disregard for convention, choosing rather to exploit its endless possibilities far beyond its normal range. Stockhausen refuses to accept any limits to expression (see the Helicopter String Quartet from Mittwoch aus Licht as another extreme example) in order to represent something that takes place on a higher cosmic level. The different sections of the orchestra are all directed to form the face of Lucifer piece by piece, building it up on sections musically with instructions from Lucifer himself.

That takes some imagination not only to stage but stage and play effectively in a way that summons up the necessary character and ritualistic aspect of this scene. It's superbly visualised by Nieto here with live projections overlaying the ranged players on the various levels of La Philharmonie moving to the twitches of eyebrows and rolling of eyes. Michael as a trumpet player challenges Lucifer but proves unable to set himself against the renewed force of evil. This is opera but very much not how anyone else does it.

So to follow that, the dance descends into a cacophony, the musicians protest and walk off the stage and the final part of Samstag, Luzifers-Abschied (Lucifer's Farewell) takes place in the nearest church. Here it's the Ëglise Saint-Jacques Saint Christophe de la Villette, where 13+13 bass and 13 tenor Franciscan monks sing St Francis of Assisi's 13 part Hymn to the Virtues with increasing intensity as they run around the church. After the ritual to banish the blasts of a row of diabolic trombonists, a caged wild bird is released and the monks smash 39 coconuts (no, really) on the steps outside the church in a solemn vow of purification. Bells, clacking of clogs, hammering of wood instruments, some organ, clapping and Gregorian-like chants; again full use is made of spacial surround to envelop the audience in the sound experience, bringing this extraordinary rarely performed work that is completely unlike anything else to a solemn but fervent and slightly manic conclusion.

Aside from the traditional opera characteristics of narrative, theatre and music, there is clearly much more to a performance of any of the works of the Licht cycle than that, which is of course why Stockhausen's innovation in his musical direction is so important. Maxime Pascal refers to Licht being Stockhausen's attempt to make the sound an invisible force and why the use of spacial dispersion of sound is important. The impact of that is quite noticeable when this is heard live with music and sounds bombarding you invisibly from all sides. It's something that takes more than just rationalisation or interpretation, it very much needs to be immersively experienced to be truly felt. Even watching it as a streamed recording it's clear that Samstag is an extraordinary work in a unique and absorbing cycle of operas.

Stockhausen doesn't appear to leave much room for reinterpretation of his work as there are precise instructions and an element of ritual throughout Licht, but the subjects themselves demand a personal response on the part of the creatives as much as the audience. Maxime Pascal and the Le Balcon are fortunately among the finest ensembles promoting new music and the championing of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen. With full-scale productions of Donnerstag and Samstag from the Licht cycle completed now, their dedication and fidelity to Stockhausen's monumental vision has so far proved to be impressive and revelatory. This is proving to be one of the most important opera projects of our time.

Links: Philharmonie de Paris Live, Le Balcon, Licht Paris

Stockhausen - Donnerstag aus Licht (Paris, 2018)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Donnerstag aus Licht

Le Balcon - Paris, 2018

Maxime Pascal, Benjamin Lazar, Damien Bigourdan, Safir Behloul, Léa Trommenschlager, Elisa Chauvin, Damien Pass, Henri Deléger, Emmanuelle Grach, Iris Zerdoud, Suzanne Meyer, Mathieu Adam, Jamil Attar

Opéra Comique, Salle Favart - 15 November 2018

Stockhausen still remains a bit of a challenge (I can't imagine it ever being anything else) and his Licht cycle of operas must surely be among some of the most challenging of all. You need to have some belief in the composer's underlying philosophy to play it convincingly or really get anything out of it as a listener. The contemporary music ensemble Le Balcon are certainly believers, familiar with the language of the avant-garde, but usually on a smaller scale and the Licht operas are on another level entirely. Even just one part of it, Donnerstag aus Licht is a huge undertaking.

It's difficult because Stockhausen has very exacting, detailed and specific ideas about how the work should be performed and presented. The Stockhausen Institute also zealously safeguard the composer's legacy and aren't at all happy with anyone who doesn't adhere to its guidelines in word or spirit, as was evident from their rather sternly worded note offering certain misgivings on the last production of Donnerstag at Basel in 2016. Le Balcon's production, directed by Benjamin Lazar and conducted by Maxime Pascal for the Opéra Comique in Paris actually takes more liberties with personal interpretation, but make a much more convincing case that the true message of Donnerstag is not so much in the narrative as in the music.

You can have a synopsis sitting in front of you and even have a working familiarity with the work from the previous Basel production which played out at least to the letter of the work, but Act I of this Paris production is still extraordinarily challenging and difficult to follow. Michael's childhood, mirroring some of the composer's own family experiences, shouldn't be that difficult to follow, even though Stockhausen has three characters playing each of the three main roles; as a singer, a musical instrument and a dancer. Michael for example is represented by a tenor singer, a trumpet player and a dancer.

Having an instrument double or a dance double is now a common enough feature employed at least by some modern directors for other operas - although never both - but Stockhausen has other reasons for such divisions. There's the significant use of the trinity that represents different aspects of a complex personality as well as approaches the subject from different time periods. Lazar however doesn't try to make this any easier to follow (and even switches to a second tenor Michael in Act III), but with a back screen projection of a child writing in Act I there is some indication that Michael may be hugely talented but at this stage is still learning his craft, drawing from personal experience and translating it into words and music. At this stage however, the music is not powerful enough to defeat the forces of father/Luzifer's darkness, and it only develops with the extraterrestrial gift from Mondeva (Moon-Eve).

Act I is a struggle, but by Act II it all starts to make sense as Stockhausen takes his ideas of opera in a new direction and beyond its narrative limitations by having no conventional singing at all. Words are no longer needed, music finds its own expression and universal language as Michael travels around the globe to bring his message to the world. Again, the overarching narrative idea is kept simple - the image of a child spinning a globe instead of literal depictions of situations in Cologne, New York, Japan, Bali, India, Central Africa and Jerusalem - but the real meaning is contained in the music, *IS* the music. In Act II it's Michael's trumpet that defeats Luzifer's trombone much more convincingly in a stunningly staged battle scene.

The visual impact is important also, again more important than the narrative, making use of symbols and lights, symbols written in light - but it's in the music that the work gets it truest musical expression and that this production is most successful. The quality of the musical performance is extraordinary and to make sure that you get it and feel its full impact, it's spread all around the Salle Favart auditorium with electronic sounds, with those strange clicking noises that Stockhausen enumerates and in the huge choral arrangements that come at you from all directions. It's not so much putting the audience in the opera as opening up the music for you to experience it in all its beauty, literally filling your world with music to the extent that you forget that it's "difficult" and find yourself enveloped in a new language that is speaking directly to you.

This evidently is the gift that Stockhausen believes he/Michael has to offer the world and Le Balcon marshall all their forces in collaboration with other like-minded musicians and creatives to make this an orchestral, choral and theatrical tour-de-force. Act III's festival for Michael's homecoming was accordingly utterly astounding, truly making Stockhausen's music speak, sounding like nothing earthly. The impact of the visuals was just as impressive, not needing to be as descriptive as the Basel production was perhaps a little inclined to be, but ensuring instead that the audience's attention was riveted towards the music and towards the musicians, who appropriately are all prominently arranged across the stage for the almost overwhelming final Act.

A rarely performed opera, the Opéra Comique's 2018 production of Donnerstag aus Licht was created for just three performances, so this was always going to be a special event and indeed it proved to be an experience that would be impossible to replicate in any other way. Le Balcon made sure that their production in the just about perfect environment of the Opéra Comique's Salle Favart theatre not only lived up to expectations, but delivered what is likely to be considered as one of the major events of the current opera season. Stockhausen's gift to the world has reached Paris, the truth of its message delivered and it was enthusiastically received.

Links: Opéra Comique

Dove - Monster in the Maze (Aix-en-Provence, 2015 - Webcast)

Jonathan Dove - Monster in the Maze

Festival Aix-en-Provence, 2015

Simon Rattle, Marie-Ève Signeyrole, Damien Bigourdan, Lucie Roche, Damien Pass, Miloud Khétib

ARTE Concert - 9 July 2015

There's always a chance that international initiatives to promote opera could end up as rather bland and well-meaning. Actually, there's not really any foundation for that statement, since the evidence as far as I've seen it is that such ventures are usually quite successful and innovative. Such is the case with Jonathan Dove's retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur myth The Monster in the Maze, and the reasons for its success are clearly apparent in this French production of the new work at the 2015 Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Certainly the principal reason for its success would seem to be down to the figures behind in the commissioning and composition of the work, as well as their commitment to get behind the idea, mentor it and promote it. Co-commissioned by Sir Simon Rattle and Simon Halsey, the idea was to have the composer Jonathan Dove write a work scored for professional musicians, young musicians and amateur singers. That's a good cross-section of talent capable of bringing together a creative cauldron of experience, new ideas and ideas from outside the traditional opera mindset.

Rather than set out exactly how the work would be performed, it was then workshopped for different interpretations for productions with The London Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Judging by the French première of the work at Aix, it would seem that the success of the work rests then on how it allows the creative talents of each of its venues to come up with their own response to the work, gaining particularly from engagement with the young people who serve as the chorus. Obviously however, the work itself has to inspire the young singers, and surprisingly, Greek myth would seem to provide exactly what is needed.

It's more than just the fact that Greek drama traditionally relies on a Chorus to provide commentary and active involvement in the narrative. In the legend of the Minotaur it's possible for the young performers to relate to the deeper themes when it concerns the fate of young children who are innocent victims of a cruel regime, victims of old ways that have nothing to do with them. In The Monster in the Maze, it's Minos, the ruler of Athens, who has decreed that young victims be sent to the island of Crete as sacrifices to the half-bull/half-human creature, the Minotaur. This is a surprisingly potent image that young and old can creatively engage with.

At the time of the performance of the work in the summer of 2015, I'm sure many could draw comparisons between the themes of the work and the Greek economic crisis, as well as the refugee crisis in Syria affecting Greece and Turkey. It certainly isn't an aspect that is highlighted in the French production but that just testifies to the universal relevance of the drama and the power of its themes. For the French production at Aix however, there is clearly a basic emotional engagement with the needless deaths of young children, standing up for what is right and having the conviction to believe that one among them can lead the way out of the cruel dictates of rulers using corrupt means of exercising power according to old laws.

The participation in the workshopping of the work, in finding the best way of representing these ideas on the stage, is also undoubtedly empowering for the young participants. Which is great for opera, as it shows that the medium is not inaccessible or beyond their capabilities. Not only that, but the judging by the response to the work in these performances, where it was warmly received by an appreciative audience for the genuine qualities of the music, there is real validation for the performances and the production as a whole.

For its French language version at Aix, Alasdair Middleton's libretto is adapted superbly by Alain Perroux. I haven't heard the English language 'original', but in French, Le Monstre du Labyrinthe sounds wonderful, the words and singing flowing with true musicality that engages dramatically with the story, particularly Damien Bigourdan's excellent Theseus. Dove's score is not Harrison Birtwistle by any means, but it provides a fresh modern take on classical themes that helps make the subject feel relevant and real. Intended to be a small orchestra of soloists, with the chorus providing much more of the musical force, Rattle nonetheless manages to get a glorious huge sound out of the LSO, accompanied by members of the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra.

The staging at Aix also provides a fresh modern take on the classical Greek drama. Marie-Ève Signeyrole directs well, managing to keep things moving without any clutter despite the huge numbers of child singers on the stage. Everything is used to tell the story and take it from one place to the next, over the sea and into an underground labyrinth, using back projections, animated sequences and mirrors. The depiction of the Minotaur as an origami construction might make its defeat seem as easy as making a paper boat during the interlude, but The Monster in the Maze is all about making what seems impossible actually achievable.

Links: Monster in the Maze, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, ARTE Concert