Talk:Mittwoch aus Licht

"Orchestra Finalists"

I confess to being somewhat confused by the description of this act as performed in Birmingham. According to Stockhausen's CD release: " On the stage are 11 chairs and music stands....11 musicians enter from the left and sit down on the chairs. Their bearing is concentrated all the time as they listen attentively and they retain this formal attitude throughout. The oboist walks to the microphones at the front of the stage...plays a solo... goes back to chair (condensed). The Cello then comes to the microphone and begins to play."

The other musicians follow suit. The description and diagram here bear no relation to what seems to have been done in Birmingham. If somebody can throw light on this I'd be interested. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.219.146 (talk) 01:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

The Birmingham production of this scene was a very clever solution to the staging paradox that Stockhausen designed. How exactly should the audience view the whole scene as if they are looking through a telescope? Graham Vick killed two birds with one stone there. He managed to work in the community volunteers which are integral to Birmingham Opera's mission, while coming up with a charming production solution to a scene that is essentially unstageable as Stockhausen describes it.

The Wikipedia articles for Licht quite rightly tend to refer to Stockhausen's original conception. That is the starting point for any discussion of the cycle, but since the Birmingham production is pictured in the article, it certainly makes sense to explain the disparity. Trumpetrep (talk) 04:52, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

True enough, Trumpetrep, but no matter how clever Graham Vick's solution may have been, it is not unassailable and has been criticised in print, perhaps most notably by Robin Maconie. This is far from being an isolated case, either in Stockhausen's case or in that of many another opera composer. (Did Handel ever say that Orlando should be set on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral?) Perhaps this should be discussed in this article (and for what it is worth, those photographs are my own), but it will require reliable sources if any opinions are to be included.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:16, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

In Vick's defense, no one said being charming or clever is an inoculation against criticism. Moreover, Robin would launch one of his harangues at a barn door if the mood strikes him. Trumpetrep (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it would be useful to have some kind of section detailing which parts of this scene were Vick and which were Stockhausen. The dress rehearsal photographs enclosed with the CD seem to suggest its quite a conservative staged set up. I tend to think that,with a premiere (as opposed to secondary productions), the will of the composer should not be compromised too far by the whims of a producer. Stockhausen's importance as a composer is often obscured by his "weirdness" and "un-performability". I'm just a little worried that by presenting musicians dangling from the roof as "Stockhausen" rather than just the producer's decision, the chances of further performances may be blighted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.219.146 (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Your 2nd comment made me revisit the CD, which ameliorates some of the difficulties of the original score. Instead of saying that the musicians should be dressed as if they hail from 12 "alien cultures" (score p. VIII), he says they should merely be 12 "different cultures" (CD p.26). The CD liner notes almost exclusively discuss the concert version of the scene; whereas, the score is the other way round. In the score, the musicians are supposed to float in the air, hence Vick's harness solution, which is hardly a whim. That's a fundamental impediment to staging the scene. Any director will have to solve that riddle, in the same way that the Rhine Maidens must be made to appear as if they are underwater. The difficulties of staging Wagner's Ring certainly haven't proved insurmountable to countless productions.

As the article is constructed, there's not much need for clarification on the issue of Vick v. Stockhausen. The article accurately reflects what is in the scene. (Although, the "obsessive-compulsive fit" is an arguable characterization). Vick's largest divergence from the text of Stockhausen's score is with his volunteers. The harnesses are really just a technical solution to a problem of Stockhausen's own design. Trumpetrep (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

It should also be noted that, as with the text of the liner notes, the dress-rehearsal photographs in the CD booklet are also of the concert version. This version also differs in that the work is performed twice in succession by two different groups of performers (as if in a competition). As long as we are defending Vick (as well as criticizing him), the volunteer mimes are no more of a divergence from the score's instructions than the trapezes are. The score says that below soloist there should appear a scene on the earth: a cathedral, a swimming pool, the Aftican jungle with wild animals, an aviary, an airport, a busy harbour, and so on. I am particularly resistant to the charm of mimes, so it took me until the third performance to realize that the acrobats making a human pyramid under the oboist (for example) were actually trying to look like a cathedral. (Personally, I prefer the solution to this sort of thing taken by Carlus Padrussa for the production of Michaels Reise um die Erde, where the video projections do at least as much violence to Stockhausen's vision of the scene, but Vick obviously judged that videos were not suitable to the space and his budget.) There were no such difficulties with the swimming pool, though Vick might be criticized for letting his supposedly high-flying trombonist drop to such an undignified altitude. Somehow I don't think Stockhausen would have minded the low humour of having the trombonist lying on his back in a paddling pool, even if this ridiculous image was far from his mind when he wrote the score.

It is also the case that none of the other scenes (with the possible exception of Michaelion) come very close to the specifications in the score. Come to that, this has been the case with most of the other stagings of the Licht operas. I can scarcely think how it could be otherwise, and not only for Stockhausen's operas. I have seen four productions of The Rake's Progress, for example, and no one of them looked even remotely like any of the others. That is what stage directors, set and costume designers, choreographers, etc. are there for: to shape the visual aspects of the opera, taking into account the space in which it is being presented, the particular cast members, budgetary restrictions, and (most importantly) their own vision. Some composer give stronger hints than others about what they would like, and Stockhausen probably more than most, but all composers must be aware that their own vision is only a suggestion, subject to changes imposed by circumstances as well as to the more practical and possibly superior ideas of the stage director to whom the job has been entrusted. Notwithstanding that he might have preferred something different, Stockhausen was never confused on this point. Neither should we be. Perhaps when we have three or four more productions to compare, we will be in a better position to judge how many deviations from Stockhausen's suggestions are inevitable, and how many are inexcusable liberties.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Ha!! I recently saw an old documentary where K.S said he did consider swinging musicians on chairs above an audience at an early stage of his career. I withdraw my initial query. It seems Vick was very much working within the right spirit!! My point on production was based on the idea that I thought every action, gesture, mode of playing etc. was stipulated by the composer. It's the impression I got from "Donnerstag".