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
