Karlheinz Stockhausen: LIGHTIMAGES

The seven-part opera series »LICHT« by Karlheinz Stockhausen offers over 29 hours of music. The composer has been working on this project, certainly the largest in music history, since 1977. In the piece, Stockhausen has designed a gigantic presentation of the seven days of the week. The final piece in the series is the work »LICHT-BILDER,« which the artist finished in June 2003.
After a successful premiere in Donaueschingen, the finale to Stockhausen’s series will now be presented at ZKM. At the center of the staging are five musicians, four of whom not only play but also set the music in motion according to a choreography written into the score. The stage area, through which the instrumentalists move, comprises light sculptures from the stage designer Johannes Conen. The staging generates an impressive crossing between sound, sound projection, and visual sphere, in which the music becomes the starting point for a total synaesthetic experience.
The visual components for the presentation were newly developed at the ZKM_Institute for Visual Media, and the musical realization was worked out in part at the ZKM_Institute for Music and Acoustics.

Karlheinz Stockhausen :: Sound director
Suzanne Stephens :: Bassett horn
Kathinka Pasveer :: Flute
Hubert Mayer :: Tenor
Marco Blaauw :: Trumpet
Antonio Pérez Abellán :: Synthesizer
Johannes Conen :: Stage design
Yvonne Mohr :: Visual design
Commissioned composition by the studio CCMIX Paris and the ZKM Karlsruhe, sponsored by the endowment for the arts NRW [North Rhine-Westphalia]