Organization

Singer

Tenor

Damien Bigourdan

Michael

Soprano

Pia Davila

Bass

Damien Pass

Luzifer

Conductor

Maxime Pascal

Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie

Le Balcon

Stage director

Benjamin Lazar

Costume designer

Adeline Caron

Video designer

Yann Chapotel

Sound designer

Florent Derex

Augustin Muller

Lighting designer

Christophe Naillet

Instrumentalist

Henri Deléger

Trumpet

Dancer

Emmanuelle Grach

Iris Zerdoud

Basset horn

Mathieu Adam

Trombone

Alphonse Cemin

Paino

Alice Caubit

Clarinet

Ghislain Roffat

Others

Donnerstag aus Licht -  (Thursday from Light)

Paris

France

Philharmonie de Paris

Grande Salle Pierre Boulez

Donnerstag (Thursday) was the first completed work of the gigantic seven-opera cycle Licht (Light) by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 - 2007). Composed over a span of 25 years and lasting nearly 30 hours in total, the cycle offers up a wide-ranging, experimental take on theology, time, and the nature of the universe. In Donnerstag, the protagonist Michael (a composite of the archangel Michael and of the composer himself) comes to life in three different guises, played by a singer, a dancer, and a trumpeter as he passes from an impoverished childhood to an artistically successful adulthood and, finally, to the celestial realm as an archangel.

The prominence of new technologies in Donnerstag reflects the vision of the total spectacle that inheres in most of the work of Stockhausen, who wanted to make music available to see—a goal to which Le Balcon is particularly well suited with their assured use of video mapping, real-time streaming, 3D sound restoration… Exploring time, filling space, implicating interpreters as well as the audience, Stockhausen made Donnerstag an epic adventure for the senses and the mind, with a remarkable attention to detail and a striking narrative complexity.

Donnerstag aus Licht

Public

Thursday from Light

Approved

Donnerstag aus Licht Stockhausen

Donnerstag (Thursday) was the first completed work of the gigantic seven-opera cycle Licht (Light) by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 - 2007). Composed over a span of 25 years and lasting nearly 30 hours in total, the cycle offers up a wide-ranging, experimental take on theology, time, and the nature of the universe. In Donnerstag, the protagonist Michael (a composite of the archangel Michael and of the composer himself) comes to life in three different guises, played by a singer, a dancer, and a trumpeter as he passes from an impoverished childhood to an artistically successful adulthood and, finally, to the celestial realm as an archangel.

English

Never before has the monumental cycle of Stockhausen’s Licht been performed as a single production. This is the adventure Ensemble Le Balcon embarked upon three years ago. After Samstag (Saturday) and Dienstag (Tuesday), they give us the first two acts of Donnerstag (Thursday).

français

Thursday from Light by Stockhausen, From (2021/2021), Directed by Benjamin Lazar,, Conductor Maxime Pascal, Philharmonie de Paris, Paris, France

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Instrumentation

Crew

Co-Producer

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues