Donnerstag aus Licht, act III
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Sonntag aus Licht
A film by David Daurier
Musical direction: Maxime Pascal | Stage direction: Benjamin Lazar
Donnerstag aus Licht (Thursday from Light) presents Michael.
In the account of his youth, we see him love and lose his parents, fall in love with Eve, and pass the conservatory entrance examination.
After an extraordinary journey around the world where he discovers the rites and cultures of many peoples, he returns to his planet Sirius, where he is celebrated by Eve and mocked by Lucifer.
Nostalgic, he confides his love for humanity.
Watch the film on Philharmonie Live
Donnerstag aus Licht – Act 3
Synopsis: Michael’s Return
Michael’s Return is the third act of the musical-dramatic work Donnerstag (Thursday), drawn from the cycle of the seven days of the week, Licht (Light).
This act comprises two scenes that follow one another directly.
Festival – Vision
The third act lasts approximately 78 minutes.
The characters are:
Michael
Voice – tenor
Instrument – trumpeter
Body – dancer
Eve
Voice – soprano
Instrument – basset horn player
Body – dancer
Lucifer
Voice – bass
Instrument – trombonist
Body – mime dancer (« devil »)
two children (« angels ») playing the soprano saxophone
an image creator with three light compositions
an old woman
a messenger
five live choir groups
an orchestra
Invisible Choirs sing all around the audience.
Music, text, dance, actions and gestures were composed by Stockhausen.
Only the three texts of the Invisible Choirs were borrowed from the Hebrew tradition.
Invisible Choirs of Thursday from Light*
First text (sung in Hebrew)
The Last Judgment (excerpt from the Testament of Moses [X, 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9])
Then over all creation His Reign shall be made manifest.
Then the devil shall be no more, and sorrow with him. […]
For from His royal Throne the Heavenly One shall arise. […]
And the earth shall tremble. […]
The sun shall cease to give its light; the horns of the moon shall turn to darkness […]; the orbit of the stars shall be overturned. […]
Then, Israel, happy shall you be! […]
And God shall raise you up.
Second text (sung in German)
The end of times (excerpt from the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch [LI, 7, 8, 10])
Wonders shall appear to them in their time.
For they shall see the world that is now invisible to them and they shall see the time that is now hidden from them. […]
For they shall dwell in the heights of that world […]; they shall be transformed into every form they wish, from beauty into grace, from light into the splendour of glory.
Third text (sung in Hebrew)
The end of times (excerpt from the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch [LXXIII, 2 and 6])
Then healing shall descend like dew […]; care, anguish and lamentation shall depart from men, and joy shall walk through the entire earth. […]
Then the wild beasts shall come from the forest […] to submit to a child.
Fourth text (sung in Hebrew)
Hymn (excerpt from the Testament of Levi [XVIII, 5, 10 and 14])
The heavens shall rejoice […], the earth shall be glad, and the clouds shall be filled with jubilation. […]
It is He who shall open the gates of Paradise, and who shall remove the sword that threatens Adam. […]
Then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob shall rejoice, I too shall rejoice, and all the saints shall be clothed in righteousness.
* Intertestamental Writings, Paris, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1987
Scene 1: Festival
… and a globe in remembrance of his journey around the earth.
But the devil interferes who, as a kobold and tap-dancing trombonist, draws Michael into a cruel combat.
The appearance of two children (« angels ») playing soprano saxophones freezes everyone in enchantment.
A messenger arrives, announcing that Lucifer is once again causing trouble.
Lucifer-bass shouts in the hall and mocks everyone.
Michael has a heated exchange with him, which ends with the injunction:
« Can you not, just once, let us celebrate a feast in peace? »
Disgusted, Lucifer leaves the assembly.
Scene 2: Vision
Vision, for tenor, trumpet, dancer, electric organ, magnetic tape and shadow play, is the final scene of Thursday from Light.
Duration: approx. 50’
Premiere: Amsterdam, Concertgebouw, as part of the Holland Festival, 14 June 1980, conducted by Péter Eötvös
Commissioned by NOS Radio, Hilversum
« Festival is dedicated to my son Simon, aged 12, who, in one of the two children’s roles (“angel”), plays the soprano saxophone. »
Duration: approx. 28’
Premiere: Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 15 March 1981
Vision is « dedicated to Wolfgang Becker who, during the genesis of Thursday from Light (1978-1980), and in his capacity as director of the New Music department of the WDR in Cologne, made possible the rehearsals, recordings and concert performances of the first and third acts, and finally the technical assistance for the staged performances at La Scala, thanks to the Electronic Music Studio of the WDR in Cologne.
Without his help, this work could not have come into being in just three years, nor have been thoroughly revised and corrected in all its details, through rehearsals lasting several months. »
Michael returns in a triple form to his celestial residence.
Eve – also present in triple form –, as well as the choirs and the orchestra greet him with a hymn.
Michael gives thanks: Thursday – Day of celebration of Michael’s incarnation.
Michael speaks in triple form:
voice – tenor
instrument – trumpet
body – dancer
« Let us unite our light to renew the days of the earth. »
Eve offers him gifts:
three plants,
three light compositions.
(A very old woman magically interrupts the celebration.)
The tenor sings on the E-flat of Michael’s formula, extended over the entire duration of the Vision.
The trumpeter begins with Lucifer’s formula played staccato, to which he adds, with each new pitch of the tenor, and over the course of fifteen cyclic transpositions, an additional (sustained) pitch of Michael’s formula, until it is complete.
The dancer connects the two through a series of gestures that bring out the spirit of the sounds and the words: left hand and left arm follow the tenor, who stands to the left, behind him; right hand and right arm follow the trumpeter, who stands to the right, behind him.
MICHAEL (addressing the audience)
Lucifer, the most distinguished of the angels, rebelled when man was created.
He took the form of the serpent and joined in procreation.
For an earthly era, Gabriel chained the dragon Lucifer and, with him, all the leaders of the rebels, and banished his minister Satan to the centre of the earth.
Since that time, the Sons of Light have been fighting the Sons of Darkness.
I – spirit of the Spirit Michael – became man.
I wanted to know what it is to be a man.
I wanted to feel absolutely everything that a man can feel.
I experienced man’s suffering, what is petty and ridiculous in him.
I felt his childlike side and his joy, his happiness.
(The three Michaels withdraw towards the right side.)
You have heard and seen me:
my voice – the tenor
my instrument – the trumpet
my body – the dancer.
Through seven shadow plays, Michael now has the Vision of seven moments of his life, which he comments upon.
Seven words appear in luminous letters, and their initials are added little by little, one to another, to form his name, Michael.
MICHAEL
I have lived:
the Melodies of Childhood with mother and father
the Intensity of love through Mondeve
the Chromatic of souls in the Examination
the Harmony of languages during the Journey around the earth
the Audiogrammar of feelings in the Crucifixion
the Ecstasy of polyphony in the Ascension
the Light of resurrection during the Return.
At the end of the seventh shadow play reappears (as already in The Return) the wondrous arc of light, to which is first added at its centre a blue ring, then two concentric ones, then three.
The shadows and the arc of light fade away, only the three blue rings remain.
The three Michaels turn abruptly back towards the audience and step forward to the middle of the edge of the stage.
MICHAEL (addressing the audience again)
Lucifer, the Prince of Light, never wanted an angel to lower himself, that one of his brothers – and especially not a direct son of God – should incarnate in an obscure human body.
For Lucifer despises this world of men: that is why Lucifer causes trouble.
And I, nevertheless, became man, in order, for the time of one world-day, to live in ignorance – only sensing what an angel is, an angel-creator, a divinity, God of the universe – in order to be born from the womb of a human mother, to grow, to learn, to strive towards an ideal, and like a child to imagine, from sounds, games which even in human form still manage to touch the souls of angels:
Such is the meaning of Thursday from Light.
Man I became, in order to see myself, as well as God the Father, as a human Vision, in order to bring celestial music to men and human music to celestial beings, so that man may listen to God and God may hear his children.
And I know that many of you will mock me if I sing to you:
I have been seized by an immortal love for men, for this earth and its children – despite Lucifer – despite Satan – despite everything…
The Michaels let their gaze travel along the rows of the audience, from upper left to right, then from lower right to left, returning to the centre.
Finally, they bow in such a way that one feels that here has come the end of Thursday from Light – Day of Michael.
Thursday Farewell
After the Vision, on five roofs or balconies surrounding the opera stage, five trumpeters in Michael costumes appear – lit like sculpted tower figures – who repeat independently of one another, and like signals, each one a member of Michael’s formula, observing very long silences of varying durations, this for approximately thirty minutes.
The five trumpeters stop one after another in the order of the formula and withdraw in a stylised manner.
Karlheinz Stockhausen
(translated from German, after Ralph Alexandre Fassey)
