Stockhausen
Gesang der Jünglinge 14'
Mittwoch aus 'Licht' – Welt-Parlament 40'
(concert performance)
London premiere
Kathinka Pasveer sound projection
Ex Cathedra
Jeffrey Skidmore director
There will be no interval
Last summer Graham Vick's Birmingham Opera Company transformed a disused factory in Digbeth into the fantastical world of Karlheinz Stockhausen's epic opera Mittwoch aus 'Licht' with two bactrian camels, four helicopters and a wash of yellow light.
Tonight Ex Cathedra and Jeffrey Skidmore revisit the Babel tower of the opera's most dazzling section, Welt-Parlament ('World Parliament'): a multilingual a cappella tour de force of extended vocal techniques.
Written 30 years earlier, Gesang der Jünglinge has been hailed as Stockhausen's first electronic masterpiece, a mind-popping sonic translation of the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.