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