About the work
Dienstag aus Licht (Tuesday from Light) is the fourth completed of the seven operas in Karlheinz Stockhausen's cycle Licht – The Seven Days of the Week. Begun in 1977 and finished between 1988 and 1991, it was premiered on 28 May 1993 at the Oper Leipzig. Tuesday is the "red day" of conflict between Michael and Lucifer; in the image of Mars, the god of war, it stands for confrontation and battle. The opera is scored for 17 soloists – singers, instrumentalists and dancer-mimes – choir, orchestra and electronic music.
Plot
After a "Tuesday Greeting", the opera is divided into two acts. The first act, "The Course of the Years", was at the same time the very first piece composed of the entire cycle: a work originally written in 1977 for Japanese gagaku ensemble, in which runners embody the passage of the millennia and are repeatedly held up by temptations. The second act, "Invasion – Explosion with Farewell", unleashes a vast battle of sound: Michael's heavenly trumpets fight against Lucifer's trombones, leading to wounding, death and finally a farewell. Synthesizers and electronics intensify the martial events into an overwhelming war of sound.
Cultural significance
Dienstag aus Licht is the cycle's war opera and at the same time a haunting anti-war image. That its premiere took place in 1993 at the Oper Leipzig also makes the work an important chapter in German operatic history after reunification. With "The Course of the Years" the opera contains the chronologically first piece of the entire Licht project. The combination of acoustic and electronic forces, of ritual rigour and theatrical force, shows Stockhausen's sound-dramaturgy at a peak and makes Tuesday one of the most gripping parts of the heptalogy.