# MITTWOCH live!



## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

Event of the year : http://www.birminghamopera.org.uk/i...ight-announced&catid=24:latest-news&Itemid=31

Absolute must gig.


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

still some tickets left: http://birminghamopera.org.uk/bookit/

I already got mine


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Goodness I wish I could go!


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

Let us know how it is.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

I've written a few words about the _Helicopter _quartet in another thread. Here's what I thought of the whole thing. Unlike many, I suspect, I knew the work a little from the Stockhausen Verlag CDs and the greatest pleasure I had from the 23 August performance was seeing this music realised in three dimensions. For all Graham Vick's many strokes of genius in creating the production, it was remarkable for its fidelity to the composer's instructions, insofar as they are realisable.

The opera was staged in a gutted factory which produced two large unobstructed spaces. It was relatively intimate - only 500 in the audience each night - so there was plenty of room.

The opening _Greeting _- fifty minutes of the most gorgeous, resonant, slow music, entirely electronic - literally filled the rectangular space we were in: banks of loudspeakers occupied the eight corners (with infill speakers along the long sides). It was remarkable how accurate the positioning of the sounds in space were. Played in almost pitch darkness, there were very brief shards of illumination of small activities, a boy running with a kite, two youths miming a fight, a girl opening a box form which a balloon escaped,... all of these tiny tableaux illustrated some of the themes of the opera - reconciliation and air being the two most obvious.

Before the end of the _Greeting_, we were led out of the first space into the second where the music was continuing. Lit this time with a bright daylight colour balance, this space was equally large. We sat on mats on the floor (we had been on very low stools in the first room) and were surrounded by sixty or so umpires' chairs (all yellow of course, like everything else - even the portable light on the mixing desk was yellow - yellow being the colour of _Mittwoch_). This is the first scene of the opera - _World parliament_ - in which delegates from all over the world meet in mid air (or at least, supposedly, on the top of a skyscraper) to debate the notion of love.

This is basically an a capella choral work, where the choir is made up of soloists, and the quality of the production here was brilliant. Every person acted their part throughout, as well as singing with extraordinary accuracy and quality. A clever trick was to have more delegates than there were singers, so some people didn't sing, but contributed to the ensemble. Again, the technology impressed. Each singer was mic'd yet, despite the massive sound system, there seemed to be pinpoint accuracy positioning of the sound of each singer to their actual location. The music was completely compelling, and often really rather beautiful, an impression I confess I hadn't fully obtained from listening to the CD in the past. Even the rather heavy humour when a very realistic 2012 Birmingham security guard interrupts the proceedings and asks one of the delegates/singers to move their car before it is clamped was done well.

Then a welcome half hour break before the next scene, _Orchestra finalists_. Here, again, the staging was brilliantly conceived. The audience had to lie on their backs looking at the ceiling from which were suspended eleven instrumental players, each in their own harness. The idea is that these are players auditioning for a world orchestra and have flown in from around the globe - and they play their test pieces, one after other, hanging in space, against voluptuous tapestries of sampled sounds: birds, a train, a steamer, an air conditioning unit, bees, a creaking wooden ship, and much else - a different soundscape for each player. Stockhausen is pretty specific about how each solo should be performed - the cellist with manic tossings of her head like a muppet, for example. But there was still room for even more invention - the trombonist and bassist in particular being outstanding in the extent to which they threw themselves into their part.

One aspect of the production which could have so easily grated but which was surprisingly successful was the inclusion of a troupe of local actors (in this scene and the _Greeting_) who provided a sort of silent chorus rather in addition to the composer's demands. One imagines how the early negotiations between the production company (Birmingham Opera) and Stockhausen Foundation might have been awkward but, on the night, Kathinka Pasveer (one time, shall we say, muse of the composer and now principal representative of the Foundation for this project) smiled upon them all with genuine pleasure. So, this troupe carried out a continuous commentary on the ground while the soloists were doing their stuff aloft. It was delightfully light and droll - waving wooden birds on long bendy poles at one point, making paper planes and chucking them around the auditorium at another (when one landed on my brother, it was apparent that the paper being used was actually pages form the score of Orchestra finalists - my brother, who plays bass in a jazz group 'received' a page of the double bass solo!), walking around with sky blue umbrellas at yet another...

Once again, the sound quality was superb, the balance between soloists and sound samples was perfect and the space allowed everything to be clearly heard. In contrast with the _Greeting_, the backing of this scene consists of largely unmodulated sounds so it was a refreshing contrast (something else I hadn't appreciated before). My only cavil was that lying on the floor isn't the best way for the ears to pick up the spatial information which is an important parameter in this music.

At the end of this, we were three hours in and, in retrospect, I enjoyed this half more than the rest of work, but more about that later...


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

I saw you asking questions during the live stream after the Helicopter String Quartet, Jeremy! It must have been such an amazing experience.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

On to the _Helicopter _quartet back in the first room. There were four large screens, one in each corner. I was nervous about the moderator role, which until his death the composer took, since I had heard the guy taking this part on the radio and it was clear that, as a pop music DJ, he had been chosen to appeal to the yoof audience. As it was, he was a competent media professional, likable enough, albeit largely if not entirely ignorant of Stockhausen's music and of the genre of opera, and more than capable, in the session after the performance, of patronising the audience ("put your hand up if you know anything about Stockhausen's music"). This session, specified by the composer in the score, was the only disappointment. It could, of course, have been really interesting as not only the quartet members but also the pilots were interviewed and could be asked questions from the floor.

The performance of the music itself seemed spot on and the mixing, plus the wide spatial distances between the sounds of the players made it much easier to hear the interplay between the instruments. The basic idea is that the themes are passed form player to player in batches of a few notes at a time. The sound of the rotors was less varied than it is on the Arditti CD, but I welcomed the slight lowering of level to hear the instruments more clearly. The players cannot hear each other. They wear ear defenders to cut down the noise of the helicopter (ironically) and are fed the sound of their instrument (the same feed the audience hears) and a click track - they do have their parts as well.

It was not really possible to think of this as happening between players kilometres apart up in the air and, whilst the four screens each displayed one of the players, I can't say I really got an effect of what was actually going on. It was just me sitting with 499 other audience members watching some video screens. I think the production missed a trick by not sending a fifth chopper up with the task of filming the other four which could then have been identified in some way, so you would know which one housed the first violin and so on. You could then see how the movements of the helicopters themselves are part of the music.

After an interval, it was back for _Michaelion_. This is the only scene which even remotely resembles a conventional opera in that there are some characters and a more or less conventional chorus which typically chorussy things like running around. The instrumentation is very pared back, to say the least, and each player is part of the action, as in other parts of _Licht _and as this production had emphasised in earlier scenes. To the extent there is a story, "The Michaelion is a galactic headquarters where a meeting of delegates from different stars has been called in order to elect a new President. He or she must be a "galaxy operator" who can translate universal messages no-one else can understand" (Wikipedia). There is a lot of stuff about short wave radio reception (that was a thread running through KS's compositional life) and, notoriously a camel that defecates globes. Not a real camel, alas (though there were two real ones outside the venue). I found the staging a bit too minimalistic and the lighting (which I assume was working perfectly) was rather odd - it certainly left parts of the action in near darkness - and I can't say it made the 'plot' any less incomprehensible!

And that was it - almost. There was a Farewell, which was the sound sample background to scene 2, played in the auditorium and intended by the composer to be played in the 'foyer'; as the audience leaves. We were shepherded back to the other room, plied with orange juice (presumably the nearest drink to yellow that could be easily found) and everyone was encouraged to mingle. All the performers circulated and chatted to the audience and, in due course, they all took a bow.

All in all, it was a magnificent show which redeemed the composer's vision and managed to integrate the spectacle with the music with the whimsy and, if, in the end, it didn't quite gel as a paean to love and reconciliation that I think the composer intended, that should be put squarely at his door: Graham Vick and his colleagues worked superbly with what they were given. There were lots of nice little touches which added richness to the experience - not just the live camels, the little aerobatic display by the helicopters before the show started but all the detail of the production itself and, over and over again, this detail kept one's attention and, thereby, kept one focussed on the music.

Apparently it cost £1m, and clearly they could have spent more (eg on some costumes!). As I type, the _Greeting _must just be starting in the fourth and final performance. Each performance played to 500 people who paid £35 each (£16 concession), so do the math! I don't know how much money came from Germany - I do know that the Stockhausen Foundation was very keen for this premiere which was the last complete work of KS's not to have been premiered (and how appropriate the first night was on KS's birthday, 22 August, and a Wednesday, to boot!). It received some funding from the Arts Council England and quite right too. There was a lot of camera activity and it seems inconceivable that there won't be audio and/or video releases of this.

There are reviews here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/23/karlheinz-stockhausen-mittwoch-aus-licht-birmingham
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...a-Company-Argyle-Works-Birmingham-review.html

and a lot of pictures from the premiere, I guess, here: 
http://intermezzo.typepad.com/intermezzo/2012/08/mittwoch-aus-licht.html


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Wow ... having read Marchant's review, suddenly I'm rather envious!


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## Jimm (Jun 29, 2012)

Hey Jeremy .. thanks for the write up. I have always loved Mittwoch since I first heard it via the excellent Verlag releases, I can only imagine experiencing it in the flesh .. delivered by people who obviously put a lot of effort & care into the whole daunting project. Hopefully, there will be things released in the near future from all of this, at least the programme book! The interest in KS's music seems to be growing each year, with overwhelmingly positive & enthusiastic response .. already in 2013 they have quasi-concert performances of Samstag in Germany planned. I'm thinking now of that week somewhere in the future when LICHT complete will be fully staged .. wow.


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

Thanks Jeremy for extensive review. I was there also sitting close to Jeremy (your avatar is real . I liked the show a lot also. It would be nice to see some blu ray recording of this. The arena was perfect for this production. It is really shame, that Stockhausen productions are so rare. Someone should arrange Licht festival giving performances to all parts


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