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Karlheinz Stockhausen's Freitag aus Licht (Friday of Light), dedicated "To all children", is a message of hope and love launched skywards, and is performed on the Lille Opera stage by Le Balcon and its conductor Maxime Pascal, directed by Silvia Costa.
After Donnerstag, Samstag and Dienstag - the last of which was performed at the Philharmonie de Paris in October 2020 - Le Balcon is pursuing with the same determination its project to complete the seven days of Licht with Freitag (1991-1996), in which Stockhausen says he wanted to translate "archetypal human temptations" into music.
Freitag is the day when Eva (soprano) is tempted by Ludon (bass) - aka Lucifer. Frei-Tag (Free Day) is also the day of the children, Eva's through the orchestra of flutes and clarinets she conducts, and Ludon's (children's choir) who sing, forming a joyful tutti in the first act. In the second part (Kinder-Krieg), however, they are the ones who confront each other, with the synthesizer/sampler echoing the violence of the battle.
Elu (basset-horn) and Lufa (flute), other presences and emanations of the characters in Freitag aus Licht, evolve in Eva's bosom, while the Synthibirds (synthesizers) are more in Ludon's camp. Eva's world is white and instrumental, in contrast to Ludon's black and choral.
The plot is as follows: Ludon proposes to Eva that she unite with his son Kaino (baritone) in order to procreate; Eva hesitates, then agrees at the end of Act 1. She meets Kaino one moonlit evening and joins forces with him. But war breaks out between the two factions, scattering Eva's children. Eva repents and prays... "Darkness becomes light".
In Licht, each opera unfolds according to the same ritual, with the Salute before the start of the performance and the Farewell addressed to the departing audience; these two moments in Freitag are devoted to the electronics that are one of the defining components of this intergalactic show.
The effect of Weltraum, the Friday music of light that echoes in the foyer (the first 66 minutes of Freitag's "tape"), takes effect even before we enter the hall, preparing us to enter this sacred lair, as strange as it is irrational, imagined in all its aspects - musical, scenic and even gestural - by Stockhausen.
Three layers of sound are heard: that of the aforementioned electronics, projected continuously into the auditorium space (where the composer's voice is sometimes heard); that of the plot, deployed in ten "real scenes" and traversed by the flow of electronics; and that of the twelve "sound scenes" broadcast on twelve channels and operating in alternation with the previous one.
The idea, still based on that of temptation, is to present ten pairs of beings and everyday objects combining male and female (a man and a woman, a dog and a cat, a racing car and its driver, a soccer and a footballer's leg, a mouth and an ice-cream cone, etc.) and to build up a collection of sounds from the world that this dreamer of the unheard can hear.
Stockhausen had foreseen pairs of dancer-mimes to embody these binomials. Silvia Costa places the objects in the hands of child demiurges. Dressed in white coats and standing on the upper level of the stage, they operate these sound machines and deploy their creative energy, the choreography of gestures sometimes taking precedence over the sound dimension. As the scene progresses, roles are exchanged and pairs are hybridized, reflecting the effervescence of this noisy world, full of color and fantasy, in stark contrast to the ceremonial world below.
The framework of Stockhausen's libretto is a juxtaposition of words without narration - "day night birth / holy night - candle flame / no time / comet indicates Friday temptation" etc. - delivering messages and sung by the characters and children's choir as an act of thanksgiving. - delivered by the characters and the children's choir as an act of thanksgiving.
" Licht is like a ceremony marked by repetition, incantation and psalmody," remarks Maxime Pascal , who, as conductor, will always remain invisible! "It's a block, a formula with two voices, each a mirror of the other," he continues, evoking the melodies of the Stockhausian "super-formula" that structures the entire Licht project and gives each opera its harmonic-melodic context and overall shape.
Vocality in Freitag aus Licht is intrinsically linked to instrumental writing and detached from any Western tradition. The high-pitched voices of the children (the magnificent Maîtrise de Notre-Dame) in the central chorus of the first act take on a hymn-like, fervent and spellbinding dimension; one is reminded of Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge, but also of theOresteïa by Xenakis, when the children shake their African percussion instruments (a kind of maracas) while sending messages of love ("Emilie Fleury Silvia Costa Olivier Mantei ma petite Joséphine ma petite Markovits...") to those who welcome them into their home!
The choir is supported by the flute and clarinet ensemble (superbly prepared students from the Lille CRR), as are the three solo voices by the flute and basset-horn duo (exemplary Charlotte Bletton and Iris Zerdoud), who can stand in for the characters. In a register often stretched to the treble, the luminous voice of French soprano Jenny Daviet assumes with panache all the figures the composer draws for her, sometimes inscribing her singing on the electronic flow. Cuban bass Antoine HL Kessel, for his part, keeps his richly timbred voice in the lower register, leading the chorus in which he sings with the boys.
The superb love duet in Act II between Eva/Jenny Daviet and Kaino/HalidouNombre (baritone), in which the two characters recompose the moon in Silvia Costa's original scenography, could be engraved in the annals of Stockhausen singing. The vocal writing looks more towards the Asian world (slides, undulations, stretched lines and time, etc.) and the instrumental emission (rolling/rolling of the baritone) when flute and basset-horn support the voices and dialogue with them. The two lovers come together and meld their tessituras, in one of the most sensual and original musical couplings ever heard.
" Repentir" (real scene 8) is another highlight, with Eva kneeling at the place where she united with Kaino, singing and performing the gestures ofInori (a work of prayer and adoration in the composer's catalog), which looks as much to Christian rite as to yoga or Buddha postures.
The material is rich, the content loaded with symbols and the imagination boundless in this world-work spanning some three hours of performance, which Silvia Costa and the costume (Bianca Deigner) and lighting design (Bernd Purkrabek) team manage to represent in all its plastic beauty, abundance and coherence. Out of sight of the audience, but in contact with the performers via the screens, conductor Maxime Pascal and Le Balcon 's forces - Augustin Muller and Étienne Démoulin on sound, Florent Derex on projection - work in the shadows to bring out the magic of this total spectacle transcended by Stockhausen's poetic imagination.
Michèle Tosi
Opéra de Lille, 7-11-2022
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007): Freitag aus Licht, opera in one salute, two acts and one farewell, for three voices, three solo instruments, children's orchestra, children's choir, chorus, synthesizer and electronics. Music, libretto, scenic action and gesture by Karlheinz Stockhausen; stage direction, Silvia Costa; lighting design, Bernd Purkrabek; costumes, Bianca Deigner; sound projection, Florent Derex; electronics, Augustin Muller and Étienne Démoulin. Jenny Daviet, soprano, Eva ; Antoin HL Kessel, bass, Ludon ; Iris Zerdoud, basset-horn, Elu ; Charlotte Bletton, flute, Lufa ; Halidou Nombre, baritone, Kaino ; Sarah Kim and Haga Ratovo, synthibird. Mixed chorus (twelve singers) Le Balcon; Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris (children's chorus), les enfants de Ludon; Élève du Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Lille (children's orchestra), les enfants d'Eva. Dancers: Rosabel Huguet Dueñas, Le bras; Susanne Meyer, La bouche, Jean-Baptiste Plumeau, La jambe; Child actors: Edgar Cemin, Arsène Jouet, Alexis Mazars, Stéphane Poulet, Marin Rayon, Colette Verdier directed by Johanne Carillon. Choir director Émilie Fleury; musical director Maxime Pascal.
