When thinking about the biggest thing, Wagner's Ring comes to most of opera fans' minds. Fifteen hours in four big operas, the definitive Western musical epic. On the other hand, most of music lovers have heard about Karlheinz Stockhausen, the most controversial and revolutionary music in the second half of the 20th Century. But many classic opera fans don't know, or at least I didn't until 2011, that Stockhausen also had his operatic big saga: Licht (Light), a seven-opera cycle around 30 hours, doubling Ring's length. The Ring is an epic saga in which the conflicts and depths of Norse mythological are depicted in such a modern way to finally portay human condition. In Licht, there are also mythological characters, but with a more spiritual background, and impregnated of the composer's artistic and personal sphere.
In Licht, there are three main characters: Eve, Michael (loosely inspired in Stockhausen himself) and Luzifer, who express their own conflicts but unlike the Wagnerian final destruction, they reconcile and join in a mystical ceremony. Each character is assigned a melody and an instrument: trumpet for Michael, basset horn for Eve and trombone for Luzifer. The cycle is composed of seven operas, each one named after the days of the week and different global mythologies associated for each day are featured.
Karlheinz Stockhausen changed the music for good, as Schoenberg did in the first half of their century. Controversy and revolutionary experimentation were constant in his work, which despite being universally acclaimed, isn't always understood by the general public. This doesn't mean that to delve into his music isn't an inmersive, radical, unforgettable experience. This "enfant terrible" took electronical music to classical field, being a referent in such a matter. He, probably like no other modern composer, explored radically until the most remote corner of any existing instrument, including human voice. In this work, every instrument is part of the show: classical ones, synthetizers and even the audience as artists move among them.
This magnum opus has any kind of spiritual influences: vedic, Jewish-Christian ones, and many others, having its origins in a piece called Jahreslauf, premiered in Japan, for dance and Gagaku orchestra. This composition took Stockhausen twenty-six years, in which he incorporated any technological source available which could help his inspiration, like the famous helicopter-quartet, in which the soloists play on board of helicopters. All of his styles are present here. Stockhausen, through the character of Michael, tells his own autobiography, like in Mondeva, narrating his mother's murder by the Euthanasia Nazi program. Each piece of every opera of this cycle can be performed independently. That is how different parts of this work have been performed in Spain in the past, and some of them, in the 90s, were attended by the composer himself.
Performance at the Holland Festival, 2019.
Such a work has never been performed in its totality. In 2019, the Holland Festival and the Dutch National Opera performed half of the cycle, around fifteen hours. In an attempt to introduce the cycle as a whole concept to the Spanish contemporary scene, the madrileño ensemble Neopercusión has taken some of the most famous pieces of it to perform at the Espacio Ronda, a modern cultural center in central Madrid. Many conservative opera fans wouldn't consider it an opera, even music, despite it has been conceived as an opera by the composer. The big difficulty not only in performing but to consider scheduling such a work, the rights hold by the Stockhausen Foundation, not to talk about the conservative taste of operatic audience (so different of the contemporary music audience in Spain), could be main reasons to maintain the Teatro Real, where Stockhausen's opera deserve to be performed considering its importance, out of any involvement.
Neopercusión, led by the percussionist Juanjo Guillén (who has worked in the National Spanish and Teatro Real orchestras), is a noted contemporary musical ensemble with a 27-year activity, based in Madrid, but touring auditoriums and alternative venues nationwide and also abroad. In 2019, they premiered in Madrid Steve Reich's Music for 18 musicians. Eleven musicians have carried the olympic task to take Stockhausen's music in the small auditorium of Espacio Ronda, which reveals as acoustically limitated for the score's intensity and volume, as it reverberated so excesively that ears could feel it in some moments at the beginning. That is why I wonder if Licht, even in a highlights program, should be performed not only in the Teatro Real or the Auditorio Nacional, but even in the Auditorio 400 of the Reina Sofía Museum or in the Matadero de Madrid, the avant-garde cultural center which would be ideal for these operas.
Stockhausen advocated for inmersive experience in the performances of his music. That is why the musicians are distributed around four points in the hall. The main stage would be used only for the flute performances. This event, as mentiones before, has been a 2-hour selection of the most important pieces, in which each opera-day was represented by a chosen work, and the different pieces were linked by a narration and a song from the Die sieben lieder der tage cycle, each one for the corresponding day, giving the audience an idea of wholeness and unity. So, this was the program:
MONTAG AUS LICHT - Flautina, Die 7 lieder der tage: Montag.
DIENSTAG AUS LICHT - Saxophone, Die 7 lieder der tage: Dienstag.
MITTWOCH AUS LICHT - Mittwoch Formel
DONNERSTAG AUS LICHT - Bijou, Die 7 lieder der tage: Donnerstag.
FREITAG AUS LICHT - Vibra-Elufa
SAMSTAG AUS LICHT - Kathinkas Gesang
SONNTAG AUS LICHT - Die 7 lieder der tage: Sonntag.
The work begins with red lights emerging in the endarkened stage, and then the narration, in a female voice, starts. The first work (from Monday) is Flautina, for the different kinds of flutes, starting with a brief and nice melody, to continue to their very limits. Flutist Marta Gómez, who played Licht at the 2019 Holland Festival and worked with Kathinka Pasveer herself, shown all her command of the piece, and this command will continue through the whole of the evening. Saxophone (from Tuesday), played by Beatriz Tirado, is an also intense work, with strong melodies, which sounded more than desirable due to the small size of the hall. However, it could be said one of the most beautiful pieces in the evening. Mittwoch-Formel (from Wednesday) is a piece for percussion and voices, played by Juanjo Guillén himself, Rafa Gálvez and Nerea Vera, for drums, xilophone and bells, conveying the tension of magnificence of the World Parliament. From Thursday, Bijou was chosen. This duel between flute and clarinet, played by Lia Santalla, was accompaigned by a taped chorus, the latter sounding relaxing, mystical. This was a really strong fight between these sounds, and alongside the blue light on stage and the chorus it gave a sensation of depth. Friday was represented by Vibra-Elufa, a beautiful, dreamlike piece for solo vibraphone, played masterfully by Rafa Gálvez. From Saturday, the famous piece Kathinkas Gesang was played. Thanks to his collaborations with Kathinka Pasveer, flute has a major presence in Licht, as this piece was composed for her. This is one of the most difficult pieces to play, because during half an hour the flute has to perform, alongside the accompaniment, which usually is electronic. For this occasion, Marta Gómez was accompaigned by the performers Nerea Vera, Marina Lafarga, Lía Santalla, Gÿe, Felipe Crorpas and Miguel Gutiérrez, all of them dressed in black and wearing in addition different instruments, including chirping birds and bongos, and playing golden metal sheets, hanging in coat stand metallic structures. Flutist has to move around the stage, and also across the hall. Also the performers have to change the sheets of place. There a mishap took place: when the performers leave, one of the hangers fell down and making a great, scary bang. The work ends with the flute playing alone, until to remain invisible to the audience. As said before, The Die Sieben lieder der tage song cycled linked the pieces. In this occasion, was performed for soprano voice and piano. Idoris Duarte sang with a voice sounding both dramatical and very high, accompaigned by the pianist Elisa Vázquez. With the Sunday song, the show ended.
Fernando Giles was responsible of the sound. Clara-Deguines Guillem was responsible of the action and costume design, dressing all the artists in black, making the soloists to wear some paper disguise, with red or yellow colors, and the performed wearing a white facial make-up.
The concert was received with warm applauses from the small but strong audience (who seem to fill most of the seats). Marta Gómez received the strongest ovation, being still recent the impact of her performance of Kathinkas Gesang. Neopercusión has given us such a great Christmas gift, to make the Madrileños to have a first contact with Stockhausen's magnum opus. One cannot do nothing but applaud and praise!
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