Licht

Opera cycle by Karlheinz Stockhausen

Licht (Light), subtitled "Die sieben Tage der Woche" (The Seven Days of the Week), is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen between 1977 and 2003. The composer described the work as an "eternal spiral" because "there is neither end nor beginning to the week." Licht consists of 29 hours of music.

The Licht opera project, originally titled Hikari (光 , Japanese for "light"), originated with a piece for dancers and Gagaku orchestra commissioned by the National Theatre in Tokyo. Titled Der Jahreslauf (The Course of the Years), this piece became the first act of Dienstag. Another important Japanese influence is from Noh theater, which the composer cites in connection with his conception of stage action. The cycle also draws on elements from the Judeo Christian and Vedic traditions. The title of Licht owes something to Sri Aurobindo's theory of "Agni" (the Hindu and Vedic fire deity), developed from two basic premises of nuclear physics, and Stockhausen's conception of the Licht superformula also owes a great deal to Sri Aurobindo's category of the "supramental". It is centered on three main characters, Michael, Eve, and Lucifer. Many of the events in the opera refer to The Urantia Book, which was sold to Stockhausen by a remarkable figure during his New York Philharmonic concert in 1971. In his analysis of the cycle, Gregg Wager states that "There can be little doubt that Stockhausen's first and foremost inspiration for Lucifer's rebellion originated from the Urantia Book specific terms such as "Local System", "Planetary Princes" or "Paradise Sons" can only be from the Urantia Book". Wager also points to the fact that Michael is clearly identified in Donnerstag as originating from "Nebadon", which is another location name peculiar to the Urantia Book. The emblems of Michael and Lucifer in Licht are also derived from the Urantia Book. According to Stockhausen biographer Michael Kurtz, "Michael, Lucifer and Eve are, for Stockhausen, more than theatrical figures. They are the expression of a world beyond, to which terrestrial eyes are blind, but which is given concrete form by The Urantia Book and other sources." Wager also takes care to assert that Lucifer, Eve, and Michael are "personal inventions of Stockhausen's that were made more meaningful through the Urantia Book. The listener can also assume that Stockhausen has used these symbols freely and enjoys the style of absurdist theater manifested in Originale where no clear meaning is apparent." Furthermore, according to Markus Bandur, the Urantia Book references are concealed by means of associative strategies to other fields of meaning and, as work progressed on Licht after the first composed opera, Donnerstag, their significance progressively diminishes. The importance of the Urantia Book for Stockhausen's work should not be overestimated.

The musical structure of the cycle is based on three counterpointed main melodies (or "formulas"), each associated with a central character. It follows the method of super formula composition: these melodies define both the tonal centers and durations of scenes as a whole, as well as the melodic phrasing in detail. Each of the three central characters is also associated with an instrument: Michael with the trumpet, Eve with the basset horn, and Lucifer with the trombone. [See : the Licht superformula.] Stockhausen's conception of opera is more akin to the tableaux of the Renaissance masque and its hermetic cosmology than to traditional dramatic and climactic structures typical of the past two centuries. Because of its circular structure, in which the seven days of the week must be passed through again and again, a moral critique is rendered impossible, since the themes of the days perpetually return as permanent features of reality. This in turn reflects Stockhausen's theological outlook, which offers a perspective beyond the superficial differences and opposites that place limitations on thought and hope. Licht is not therefore primarily about the conflict between good and evil, but rather is a drama of latent tensions concerning a dispute about different conceptions of reality. The cycle is constructed modularly. Not only is each of the seven operas a self sufficient work, but so are the individual acts, scenes, and—in some cases—portions of scenes. These modules may be segments (e. g., the eleven instrumental solo sections from Orchester Finalisten from Mittwoch), or layers (e. g., the electronic Oktophonie layer from the second act of Dienstag or the Klavierstück XIII version of the first scene of Samstag (Luzifers Traum), with the bass voice omitted), or a combination of the two (e. g., the vocal sextet Menschen, hört and the Bassetsu Trio, which are two layers of the "Karusel" subscene from Michaelion, the fourth scene of Mittwoch).