Scenes from Montag aus Licht - Lille Opera house (2025) - Scènes de Montag aus Licht - Opéra de Lille (2025)

Description

"Eva is the cosmic mother of all beings and Monday – Montag – is her day. A generative and sensual power, she will deliver fantastic creatures to the world and bewitch humans… Continuing its spotlight on Stockhausen’s great Licht cycle. The Seven Days of the Week, Le Balcon opens the workshop for the making of an opera, offering open rehearsals, a listening session and performances of solo scenes from a world work cradled by the mythology of tales.

The opening of the Licht cycle, Montag is an opera imbued with ceremony and magic. Stockhausen celebrates the birth of the world and the feminine side of humanity through his symbols (the moon, water, childbirth) that cross all cultures and all human temporalities. Written from 1984 to 1988, Montag aus Licht pushes instrumental virtuosity, electronic composition and technological challenges to a unique level. Created in 1988 At La Scala in Milan, Montag “explodes” the limits of Italian theatre, to create a true magic dreamed of by the composer. After Freitag aus Licht, shown in 2022 at the Lille Opera, Le Balcon offers a selection of solo scenes from Lundi de Lumière, as part of the very long preparation required for this opera. The collective wanted to open the doors of its workshop, inviting the public to attend the rehearsals, by letting them listen to the electronic music prepared by the composer, and by offering two unique performances of the solo scenes of an opera that seems like an initiatory journey whose dramaturgy borrows from eternal tales – Snow White, The Pied Piper of Hamelin – as well as from the magic and naivety of childhood and its eternal legends. A few scenes, like a few spells from a Monday where the birth of humanity and that of the world are played out, celebrated by magical invocations from the most diverse civilizations: European, Asian, African…

As is often the case with Stockhausen, the writing combines the avant-garde with fantasy, the monumental with the sensitive, to bring together beliefs and ceremonies. “An ode to the coming together of peoples through a narration of birth”, where children transform into birds, while synthesizers play notes that resemble stars suspended in the sky…

Open rehearsals from January 7 to 16 (free, by reservation)"

More information is available on the official website of the opera house.