Expansive, epic drama - Freitag aus Licht in Paris

Last night in Paris there was a one-off performance of the fifth opera from Licht, Freitag (1991-1994), the cycle by Stockhausen, as part of the wonderful Festival d’Automne. It was good to see that the event attracted a large, capacity audience - a real young and old, diverse mix. Well done France on believing in the benefits of complex and challenging art for all, that can genuinely reach people, compared to the UK where currently the ACE seems intent on vandalising institutions doing good work (e.g. ENO, Psappha, Britten Sinfonia, Sound and Music etc., although the larger context of waste and corruption over the last few years by government makes these cuts even more frustrating and distressing).

At these events, in the Phiharmonie's Pierre Boulez concert hall, it is the civilised custom to prepare the more curious members of the audience with a clé d'écoute. This was presented by Laurent Feneyrou. Entirely in French, of course, but the formal style and steady delivery meant that Liz and I grasped a fair number of the points. Memorably, the speaker mentioned that the coupling of the photocopier machine and the typewriter should be understood as the typewriter's voice literally speaking through the photocopier - and so it transpired. The sense of a relationship to epic poetry, drama and myth was set out elegantly, with the speaker reminding us that a mystical connection with Noh, Judeo-Christian and Vedic traditions is struck. I particularly liked the idea that it was a retelling of the Genesis story. Eve has an affair with 'Caino' in order to accelerate the 'development of mankind' but this instead leads to war amongst the children. Another point that came over well in Feneyrou's presentation was the intentional interweaving of a unifying mysticism with compositional rigour: very large ideas of God as light (and vice versa), and sin and repentance, are enacted within a rigorously defined and pre-planned scheme, whose super-formule originates with the cycle's pre-compositional notations back in 1977. I do buy this point overall, but at the same time the sense is of welcome fluidity and improvisation, decoration and embellishment, between the main structural pillars. Certain problematic features of Stockhausen's original conception were sensibly softened in this production. In 1996 Stockhausen envisaged an orchestra of 'white children' with orchestral instruments representing the European tradition, and a chorus of 'black children' with African percussion instruments. In this production the ensembles of children are sensibly converted to two tribes, one dressed in white, the other dressed in black, irrespective of skin colour (mainly white, to be honest). Indeed, the children's chorus was an outstanding feature, ranging we thought from aged roughly 10 to 15. They had been immaculately prepared, and fully embraced the strange ritual, and its slowly evolving language of symbolic gestures and sounds. Brilliantly full of gusto.

The live scoring is relatively light - a key role is Eve's, brilliantly sung by soprano Jenny Daviet, who has soaring lyrical lines which express complex, contradictory, impulsive and emotional humanity in ways that are strange yet beguiling and compelling. This works in contrast to the statuesque pacing of the music drama. The music is underpinned by often deeply impressive electronic music, beautifully spatialised in the hall of the Grande salle Pierre Boulez at the Philharmonie de Paris - a sense of depth, precision and ineluctable beauty in the often tonally based, yet free, electronic sounds, which are in constant movement. The conceptual claim is of three, separate, co-existing layers or systems of music (I sometimes wonder, when I see Stockhausen's pre-compositional sketches, if he was influenced by Schenker?) comprising 'scenic action', 'concrete music' to represent the 12 hybrid couples, and the deep level of abstract ambient electronic music. I understand the conception but I am not sure that this is the way I hear it - in order to navigate the drama one prioritises, or grasps for, elements of meaning and narrative. The couplings, and the electronics contribute to this, as reflective elements, counterpoints or interpolations. (I think I recognised the music appropriated by the Quay Brothers for In Absentia in the second act; the Quays turned it into a story about mental disintegration, abandonment and isolation; it was good to hear this music, which I personally first experienced through the Quays animation, in its original context, where it is redolent of the mingling of opposites, attraction, consummation, even, and wild, gyrating, ecstatic human experience). So the spatialisation or sound, and also the live mix with live elements, (voices, flute, bass clarinet, synths etc) was just wonderful. Although we had prepared reasonably carefully (read programme notes, perused the libretto, attended the pre-concert talk) we couldn't hear the words, and the projected words only hint at narrative obliquely. I think it's fine for opera to be intellectual, ambitious, symbolic, allegorical - I love all that. But I really do think it is important to understand What Is Going On. No self-respecting storyteller or theatre production would neglect clarity of articulation, but this goes for the birds in a performance style that is meant to be music drama. I also do not think that Stockhausen's inspiration is as sustained in quality as, say, Wagner's. There are periods in which you wish he would hurry up or cut to the next scene. But on the other hand you do need time to create scale. So I deeply admire the ambition and appreciate the work very much. The impression was of an expansive, epic drama, and an impressive contribution to the story of music with big ideas and ambitions, and Freitag is an essential listen for our fragmented and precarious times, that speaks overall with immense artistry to the dilemmas and sensations of existence.