About the work
Samstag aus Licht (Saturday from Light) is the second-composed of the seven operas in Karlheinz Stockhausen's cycle Licht – The Seven Days of the Week, written in 1981–1983 and premiered on 25 May 1984 in Milan (at the Palazzo dello Sport, by La Scala). Saturday is Lucifer's day – the figure of the adversary, represented by bass and trombone. In the imagery of the weekly cycle, Saturday stands for death and Lucifer's realm, before Sunday brings reconciliation.
Plot
The opera consists of a greeting and four scenes. "Lucifer's Dream" shows the sleeping Lucifer in a duel with a piano soloist. "Kathinka's Chant as Lucifer's Requiem" is a highly virtuosic flute solo that, as music for the soul, points the way through death. In "Lucifer's Dance", a huge wind orchestra is arranged into an enormous human face whose individual parts – brow, eyebrows, cheeks, mouth – begin to "dance" one after another. The work closes with "Lucifer's Farewell", in which monks process into the open air singing a chant on texts by Saint Francis of Assisi, and a black bird is set free.
Cultural significance
Samstag aus Licht is among the most theatrically spectacular parts of the cycle. "Lucifer's Dance", with its orchestra set up as a human face, is one of the most original stage ideas in modern opera, and "Kathinka's Chant" belongs to the most demanding repertoire for solo flute. Like the whole Licht cycle, Saturday too is generated from Stockhausen's "superformula" – the superimposition of the three formulas of Michael, Eve and Lucifer – from which all durations, melodies and scene forms are derived. The opera blends ritual, myth and avant-garde sound direction into a unique world-theatre.