Karlheinz Stockhausen - Freitag aus Licht
Opéra de Lille, 2022
Maxime Pascal, Silvia Costa, Jenny Daviet, Halidou Nombre, Antoin HL Kessel, Charlotte Bletton, Iris Zerdoud, Sarah Kim, Haga Ratovo, Rosabel Huguet Dueñas, Suzanne Meyer, Jean-Baptiste Plumeau, Emmanuelle Monier, Pauline Nachman, Marie Picaut, Michiko Takahashi, Léa Trommenschlager, Ayako Yukawa, Frédéric Albou, Arthur Cady, Bertrand Bontoux, Jean-Christophe Brizard, David Colosio, Florent Martin, Colette Verdier, Marin Rayon, Alexis Mazars, Stéphane Poulet, Edgar Cemin, Arsène Jouet
Philharmonie de Paris streaming
With Freitag aus Licht, Le Balcon continue their work on what must surely be one of the most ambitious projects in opera; a complete cycle of the seven Licht operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen between 1977 and 2003. Totalling 29 hours of music and spectacle unlike anything else, this cycle has understandably never been produced in its entirety by the same opera company. Dealing with the eternal struggle to dominate Earth between good and evil, darkness and light, each of the operas has their own distinct character and challenges. Composed between 1991 and 1994 Freitag aus Licht ("Friday from Light") is the opera of temptation, but perhaps not entirely in the way you might think. It's associated with Venus and the colour orange, its spiritual features are knowledge and wisdom, and the temptation is indeed of the body, but also the temptation to change, to use the body as an instrument and turn one sound into another.
This is a consistent theme in Stockhausen's Licht, where the idea of opera itself and what it is capable of is also transformed with an unconventional libretto that turns words into sounds and action into gestures. In terms of plot then, Freitag can't be easily summarised, and even an outline description of the stage direction and actions is unconventional and impossible to subject to analysis or interpretation, much less consider how it fits into the Licht series as a whole, but Le Balcon do their utmost to make it as easy as possible to follow, breaking the work down to its composite parts. What follows might not make a lot of sense, but it will be fun trying to relate it, so here goes...
There are essentially three aspects to the work. The opening section the Weltraum is a suite of electronic music recorded by Stockhausen which, like the other works in Licht, serves as a greeting (Gruss) to the audience on entering the theatre, entering the world of Stockhausen. There are 12 'dance scenes' of dancers dressed as 'everyday objects' who undergo transformation by "hybridisation" over the course of the performance. The third element of the opera is the dramatic action - although 'drama' and 'action' are obviously unconventional - that takes place in the ongoing struggle between good and evil, where on Friday, good yields to temptation, but perhaps something comes of this unnatural union.
Le Balcon's production at Lille in 2022 doesn't make use of dancers, but rather sets up a kind of scientific laboratory were young children in white coats experiment with pairs of household objects and creatures that each make their entrance onto the stage to the electronic music backing. The first pair introduced is male and female, shown in cutaway models of human head and torso, which is then followed by dog and cat puppets, with other seemingly random objects making entrances at each significant stage of the opera.
Before then the dramatic action that relates the story of temptation plays out, Eve - a significant person in the triumvirate that is formed between her, Michael and Lucifer - encounters Lucifer in a new form, as Ludon. The exchange between them uses few recognisable words, Stockhausen moving beyond conventional language vocalisations into sounds clicks with Lufa and Elu (solo flute and basset horn) accompanying Eve. Ludon gives Eve a pearl in a clam shell. This heralds the entrance of a photocopying machine and typewriter in the dance section set at a different level on the stage.
Some time later Eve returns, wearing orange and accompanied by a Children's Orchestra dressed in white. She meets Ludon, who is accompanied by a children's choir dressed in black, again the orchestra and choir forming an extension of their language as they come to play together. Ludon offers his son Kaino in marriage, all of this taking place in slow ritualistic movements, exchanging words and sounds. The Consent section takes place after the entry of the racing car, pinball machine and leg with a football sock, and is celebrated with a rocket around the moon.
Part two of the opera commences with the consummation of Eve and Kaino on a boat, a scene ecstatically vocalised and scored by Stockhausen in a blend of swirling electronic drones, soft industrial clangs, bleeps and acoustic instruments. The union however is not a good one, is lamented by Michael and this causes an unnatural hybridisation between male and female humans and the cat and dog, followed by a hybridisation of photocopier and racing car. Meanwhile other objects make their entrance, a naked arm that is injected by syringe and an electric pencil sharpener. But what about the children? Well, all this leads to a war, a Kinderkrieg, yet another battle in the continuous war waged across many parts of Licht.
(Apparently a flying rhinoceros comes to the rescue of Ludon's children but I must have missed that with so much else going on).
The hybridisations continue between the footballer's leg and the pinball machine, there is the entrance of an ice-cream cone and woman's mouth, the rocket and syringe in naked arm come together, a violin and architect make an entrance, followed by a nest and a crow. As each of the hybridisations occur, other figures turn up on the stage as representations of the hybrid forms. Repentant, Eve begs Michael - the saviour as we have seen in previous days of Licht already presented (Donnerstag, Dienstag, Samstag) - for forgiveness.
So not exactly conventional or even comprehensible for the most part, but Freitag aus Licht is not the hard work that its formidable scale, ambition, reputation and description might suggest. It's not overly serious either, although I suspect Stockhausen took it very seriously indeed. You are free however to see it as you like and in the hands of musical director Maxime Pascal and director Silvia Costa, it's actually a very engaging work, inviting you into its deeply involving world, asking you to think differently or feel perhaps more than think. It's certainly grand, wholly operatic, more than a little bit bonkers, pushing the boundaries of the lyrical and theatrical art form.
I don't believe that the opera places any demands on you to follow and understand everything that is going on other than on the most basic level of good encountering evil and seeking to overcome temptation. Everything else is just part of the audiovisual experience, for you to feel and pick up things that don't fit into coherent language or rational action. Analysis is superfluous, as everything Stockhausen wants to express in this opera is up there on the stage - flying rhinoceros notwithstanding - so it's up to the viewer what they take from it. Bearing in mind of course that Freitag is just one part of the whole seven opera Licht cycle.
Stockhausen doesn't leave a lot of room for director interpretation, but Costa and Le Balcon have been very creative in how they choose to present the work which, as you can see, has some challenging and precisely detailed stage directions. They appear to try to remain as close as possible to the vital intent of the work, preserving its symmetry, its structure and the esoteric qualities that lie within its ritualistic movements. The hybridisation scenes may test one's patience with distorted cut-up high pitched electronically treated voices, but it's a striking opera performance and presentation. I'm sure they'll come up with something equally creative for the string quartet played from four helicopters in Mittwoch aus Licht ("Wednesday from Light").
Maxime Pascal and Le Balcon once again fully live up to the remarkable character of an extraordinary operatic experience. There is nothing else like Stockhausen's Licht and its originality is replicated yet again here in the spectacle of the stage production, in the musical performances and the singing. Jenny Daviet is extraordinary as an ethereal soaring Eve, interacting with the deep intonations of bass Halidou Nombre as Lucifer and baritone Antoin HL Kessel as Kaino. It demands much more than just conventional singing, as there are few recognisable words and a lot of vocalisations, all of which are notated in detail by the composer with accompanying movements and gestures.
From its Gruss to its Abscheid, Freitag aus Licht is intended as an enveloping surround theatrical experience, Stockhausen not only seeking to transform one sound into another, but to use sound that moves through space. The recording of the 2022 production in Lille, streamed via the Philharmonie de Paris (which is currently hosting the next section in the cycle Sonntag aus Licht), uses a binaural recording to attempt to capture the enveloping soundscape that Stockhausen seeks to place the audience within. It's an experience in itself.
